let the gods speak softly of us
by jellyfishheart
Summary: the summer after Sarah hooks up with Beth's boyfriend she finds herself also plagued by Rachel "I'm not here to make friends" Duncan, who's content to spend the full two months pretending she's literally anywhere else. or yet another summer camp AU in which Sarah and Rachel hate each other until it gets complicated.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** **Rachel's attitude is great for ANTM but not so much for dealing with kids. Sarah's a mess. also contains Cosima/Delphine, a disillusioned Beth/Paul, and Alison/Beth as well as a suicide attempt that will get a big warning at the start of its chapter.**

/

 _The beautiful are found in the edge of a room  
_ _Crumpled into spiders and needles and silence  
_ _And we can never understand why they  
_ _Left, they were so  
_ _Beautiful.  
_

/

A year ago today she was standing in this exact spot, watching the buses pull over the hill with a building nausea and her hands jammed into her shorts pockets so no one could see them trembling.

So much of that first day was survival that she almost wants to laugh; it had seemed crucial to keep a wall between her and the rest of the staff, convinced they'd catch one whiff of insecurity or damaged goods and pin her to a tree for the rest of the summer. Now she's half leaning against Cosima, filled not with dread but eye-rolling anticipation, tossing out names and waiting for them to be shot down.

"Quinn Martinez," she offers, lips curling in a smile.

Cosima laughs and shakes her head and beside her Delphine lets out a breath through her nose. "No way," Cosima says. "Sarah, she was a little _shit_."

"Yeah, but something about her..." Sarah says with a shrug. Cosima snorts. "All I'm saying is I wouldn't mind if she came back."

"You always do gravitate towards the troublemakers," Delphine says.

The first of the buses rumbles to a stop just before a cluster of picnic tables and Sarah shields her eyes to try to spot Quinn through the dusty windows, not really wanting to experience a summer without that little shit-disturber. She'd be eleven now, in Sarah's group; having her on her side would make the prank wars so much more entertaining. (She maybe, secretly, hasn't checked the list of campers on her clipboard yet just to surprise herself.)

A giant tangle of dark hair comes bouncing off the bus just as Delphine starts to laugh and Sarah lets out a little cheer.

"I really do like her," she says as Quinn spots her and rolls her eyes with an affectionate scowl.

The kids pile up by the picnic tables, their bags bigger than themselves, and the quiet buzz of excitement that had filled the staff as they waited has been amplified to a rush of movement and giddy chatter.

Delphine and Cosima grab their clipboards and take off to the slowing second bus, needing to catch their tiny kids before they get lost in the flow. Sarah has another couple moments of peace before her kids start to find her – the older ones are a little more self-sufficient, able to locate their bags and friends without much help, but they'll be wanting to see their cabin and any new faces soon and Sarah will have to facilitate.

She's a little curious herself to see the newest counselor, some Cambridge bitch Rachel, in action. The girl missed all but the last day of orientation week and somehow managed to get through it without talking to anyone, so all Sarah really knows about her is that she has some kind of stick up her ass and will be working with the ten year olds in the cabin attached to Sarah's.

And she isn't even here – the director wanted to chat with her before the kids arrived, so with Sarah's luck she'll be corralling two unruly groups to their cabins without even a thanks.

"So I'm stuck with you, then?"

Quinn's suddenly standing in front of her expectantly, having dragged with her two of the other eleven year-olds and their overstuffed suitcases.

Sarah smiles and resists the urge to finger-comb Quinn's hair. "Looks like it, you monkey. Hope you like manual labor."

Quinn makes a face and mutters something to the other girl, a new kid Sarah gleans is named Raya from the luggage tag, who looks petrified enough to believe whatever lie Quinn told her. _She makes us scrub the toilets with our toothbrushes_ or something equally ridiculous, and Sarah would confirm if she didn't see two returning girls looking lost in the middle of the chaos.

"Will you go get Sameera and Ava?" she says to Quinn, who frowns but moves to comply. "I'm gonna round up the rest of the brood then see if we're allowed to go to the cabins yet."

There are a few names on her clipboard she doesn't recognize but the eleven year-olds are, thankfully, usually a couple inches taller than everyone else and more cliquey than Sarah cares to understand. She can already see one of her girls with a group of boys under a tree, their eyes trained on whatever dumb joke their bigheaded counselor is probably telling.

Paul interrupts his performance when Sarah appears, immediately breaking into one of his supposedly charming smiles and moving so Sarah stands in the limelight.

"This is one of the coolest girls you'll ever meet," he introduces to his boys and the one girl who's clinging to someone who must be her twin brother. "If you're lucky she might teach you how to pick a lock or steal food from the mess hall."

"Yeah, or how to spend your summer on latrine duty," she says with a wave of her hand, eager to get out of the sickly cloud of his body spray.

Paul laughs and she shakes off the hand that lands on her arm.

"How's your girlfriend, Paul?" she mutters to him before saying louder, "I think you have one of my girls. What's your name, love?"

The girl straightens up and glances at the boy beside her, who definitely shares her cheekbones and tan skin. "Naomi," she says with more confidence than Sarah expected.

The name's at the bottom of Sarah's clipboard, and she makes a tick beside it before giving Naomi a big smile. "Well you're with me for the summer! Wanna say a quick goodbye to your brother?"

They share another look that Sarah can only chalk up to being twins, ignoring the slight twist it sparks inside her and running a hand through her hair. She hates to be the one to break up siblings.

"Don't worry Nate, we do a _lot_ of group activities together," Paul says to the brother, putting an arm around Sarah for a brief second before she slips out of it.

"Yeah, unfortunately," she says, under her breath.

She half wishes she'd taken the director up on his offer to switch to the ten year-olds when a spot had become available, much rather wanting to work with Tony, the counselor for the ten year-old boys, than be stuck with Paul for another summer. But somehow her attachment to the shitty right side of the cabin had won out. (And maybe, she won't admit to herself, she needed to keep Paul close enough to make sure he didn't try anything with anyone else.)

Naomi grabs her suitcase and slings a backpack over her shoulder and it's a steely look that could have come from Sarah that she walks away with, joining Sarah as she hightails it away from Paul and back to where her girls have gathered near a picnic table. Quinn seems to be entertaining them with what could only be an inappropriate story and Sarah sighs, getting a pretty good image of how this summer's going to go.

"I'm Sarah, by the way," she says to Naomi, who nods to acknowledge it but doesn't say anything in response.

It isn't the silent treatment, but Sarah understands the need to be alone in your head to ground yourself before whatever's about to happen to you. She spent eight years shuffled around from home to unwelcoming home; maybe it's why the lonely kids always seem to take to her.

/

Cambridge shows up at the last second to round up her ten year olds and barely even glances in Sarah's direction despite them essentially walking together to the cabin, which any other day would have unnerved her but in the wake of Paul feels almost considerate.

Rachel Duncan, Sarah reads over her clipboard. She now knows three things about the walking tundra.

Rachel turns to her once they've all stopped outside the double cabin, her short ashy-blonde hair smooth despite the breeze that's picked up. Sarah's sure her own hair is as messy as Quinn's by now and gives it a quick pat down under Rachel's guise, hoping the girl doesn't think it's for her benefit and squirming a little with the prolonged look she gives her.

"I assume you have rules to go over with your girls," Rachel says as her kids perk up at the accent. Sarah wonders if she's said anything to them at all. "Might as well do it before the chaos of choosing bunks begins, yes?"

It feels like an attempt to suss out how lenient Sarah's going to be with her kids, or to see what exactly goes at this camp. It's becoming clearer now that this is Rachel's first time working in this kind of environment and if there wasn't an almost imperceptible plea in Rachel's eyes then Sarah would milk it for all it's worth.

(Sarah's tactics were a little rougher but with the same intentions last year, and God knows where she'd be if Cosima hadn't taken her under her wing. This might play into it as well but fuck if she's gonna let that slip.)

"Yeah, of course," she says easily, motioning for all the kids to come closer.

Rachel purses her lips together in what might be gratitude and shifts her body so she looks as equally part of this as Sarah.

"Okay, so same as last year for the returning kids; you got the general camp rules in your mail out and we'll probably hear them again at the meeting, but Sarah Rules are as follows: you make a mess you clean it. That goes for stuff and people," Sarah emphasizes, giving Quinn a pointed look. "Any food you snuck in has to be in a sealed container – I am _not_ dealing with ants this year. If you aren't making friends, you're making enemies."

Rachel catches her eye at this and Sarah's tempted to call her out right now.

"Lastly," she says instead, looking back to the girls, "all feelings are valid. And I'm here for whatever you need. Anything you'd like to add, Rachel?"

The kids all look to Rachel expectantly, and she opens her mouth slightly, put on the spot. "Ah, maybe just an emphasis on personal responsibility?"

Sarah does her best to ignore a snort from Quinn. "Sounds good, I think we're good. Shall we grab our bunks now? Tens on the left, elevens on the right. If you were here last year you know how it goes so-"

She stops as the kids take off into the cabins, knowing the absolute pandemonium that's about to take place will drown out anything she could try to say. Someone's gonna come out in tears in a minute or two but for the time being, she and Rachel are alone.

"So," she says, turning to face Rachel who's frowning at a streak of dirt on her tennis shoes.

"Sarah Manning, yes?" Rachel says without looking up. Sarah makes a noise in confirmation. "I've heard so much about you."

It's almost villainous the way she spits it out, and Sarah shivers.

Of course people would be talking; she's sure it was Alison, the pint-sized future soccer mom who somehow ends up in everyone's business, who made very sure to let Sarah know last year just how despicable it was what she did with Paul. (And Alison's _affection_ for Paul's girlfriend, Beth, had nothing to do with it, Sarah's sure.) If the rumor mills are spinning Sarah knows that's on the tip of everyone's tongue.

(She likes Beth, the way anyone can like someone they only really know from observing, despite a summer working with her. Almost everyone who knows Beth only knows her from observing; if she wasn't so sad her solitude would be admirable. Still, she can't say she was thinking much about Beth when she let Paul in and she wishes she'd had the balls to apologize. To even acknowledge it.)

"Paul's an arse, just so you know," Sarah says to Rachel to just get it out of the way.

Rachel's eyebrow lifts. "Well I haven't heard about that, but I'm sure I will if that's what you assumed."

Sarah rubs her cheek and sighs. She's about to ask just what Rachel's heard when one of the ten year olds comes out crying, a hairbrush in her hand, barreling straight for Sarah who has to steer her towards Rachel.

"Good luck with that," she says as the kid starts to reach for Rachel's fitted white shirt. "I'd better go see how much blood's been shed in my cabin."

She leaves Rachel with what she can only hope is a smirk the way she feels it falter on her lips and disappears into her cabin before Rachel has time to notice.

"Oh thank God," Quinn says as soon as she's inside. "We've got ourselves a problem."

/

Sarah spies Beth that night at the campfire, as she's herding her girls towards one of the last free logs around the pit and trying to find Rachel to give her a nice glare for taking off without her. She may be new but there is still a way things are run – even the shitty tens counselor last year, Angela, new that.

Beth has her dark hair up in a bun that would look sleek if it weren't for the shadows under her eyes and Sarah understands it to be an act of desperation: just get the hair out of her face as easily as possible, one less grievance to deal with. She's near Alison, which isn't surprising, their two groups an intermingled pile across a log and the sit-upons in front of it. When Alison catches Sarah looking she lifts her chin with menace and Sarah drops her gaze, not wanting to drag all this up again.

The thing with Paul didn't even last long, but it's as if Sarah set out to break Beth's fragile heart with the way Alison's gone on. And truthfully, Sarah still hasn't said, he was the one to instigate it. The one with a girlfriend. The one who definitely should have known better, and who very much deserves at least some of the blame.

But knowing that doesn't alleviate the guilt that sits heavy in Sarah's chest and she can only drop down hard on her log and try not to look in Beth's direction.

 _Why are you even still with him_ , she wants to ask. _You don't love him_.

But maybe she does – Sarah considers that maybe it's Beth's way of trying to ground herself, just as Sarah latched on to a few bad seeds she's come to regret. There's something about being treated shittily when you're not feeling too hot about yourself that makes things feel a little more solid, and Sarah can't fault her for it. She only wishes she hadn't made it worse.

"Aw man, all the good logs are gone," Cosima says essentially at Sarah's ear, scaring the shit out of her.

"Fucking warn a person," Sarah mutters, making sure none of the kids heard. "And yeah, that's what happens when you show up late."

Cosima wiggles her hands in an apologetic gesture, her seven year-olds piling around her like lost puppies and staring curiously at Sarah's older brood. Sarah smiles at an especially tiny girl with long braids who smiles back and hides behind Cosima's leg.

Cosima's not even paying attention, squinting across the fire to presumably spot Delphine.

It didn't exactly surprise Sarah when she heard they were together at the end of last summer but she _was_ impressed they finally decided to call it something, after eight weeks of sneaking around and pretending the rest of the world didn't exist. Sarah had really gotten comfortable being a third wheel with them.

But they're happy now, still going strong, so Sarah's happy for them. Even when they forget she's around and just take off as one nerdy unit to whatever they've decided to tackle next.

"Aw, no, Delphine saved a spot for me," Cosima says with a grin, absently reaching to pat the head of whatever child's behind her. "Come along, my future scientists and engineers. Peace out, Sarah!"

Yeah, bye," Sarah says with a snort, waving at all the tiny children as Cosima weaves them around the logs to go join Delphine.

It's only as she's shaking her head and Quinn plops down beside her that she notices her log is directly next to Rachel's, and Rachel sits there with ankles crossed as if not a single part of this is taking place in front of her.

"I hate her," Quinn says, following Sarah's gaze, as she snuggles closer to Sarah's arm.

The kid's probably wiping snot on her to laugh about later, but Sarah appreciates the affection.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Sarah asks.

Rachel can probably hear them, or at least could if she wasn't mentally on some clean vacation, so Sarah doesn't want to outright agree and set the tone for this no doubt excruciatingly long summer.

Quinn lets out a loud sigh and multitasks by sending a nasty look to Daniela, who she's decided is her nemesis for the summer or something. Sarah wasn't really paying attention when she was complaining earlier. They were friends last year so whatever happened in those five minutes of choosing bunks has apparently sparked a war – or a fight that'll fizzle out by tomorrow, Sarah's not sure.

"She's a bitch," Quinn says, whispering the last word.

If it was any other kid Sarah would chuck her upside the head. "Quinn..."

"Well you know she's gonna be mean," Quinn says as if that justifies it. "Worse than Angela. Did she get fired? Ella says she got fired for drugs."

Sarah laughs and pulls Quinn closer, letting the warmth of the fire wash over her. "Yeah, no, she didn't get fired. She quit. Uh, not exactly cut out for the camp thing. You know?"

Sarah had definitely caught Angela with some pot the summer before, but it wasn't as if she didn't accept a hit when offered and the director doesn't seem to have a problem with overlooking anything that doesn't directly affect the kids. The lack of enthusiasm, however, and constant refusal to participate in arts and crafts got her one hell of a talking to. Sarah still isn't entirely sure whose idea it was for Angela to leave.

"You know Daniela's butt got bigger," Quinn says now, smiling wickedly down the log.

Daniela has a pained look on her face but is doing her best to ignore Quinn, and Sarah just doesn't have it in her to take a full summer of this.

"Really? Well she's gonna be your new bunkmate. Raya, you're gonna switch with Daniela, okay? She and Quinn need to learn how to play nice." Sarah bites down on the last word and can't help glancing over at Rachel, who seems to be listening with veiled amusement.

Quinn whines at Sarah's ear and gets up to move somewhere else on the log, deeming Sarah the moment's enemy, and Raya casually shifts in next to Sarah to fill the space and signify that she's above the petty drama.

She's a good one, Sarah's decided. She and the two cousins, Afsheen and Zohal, who are wicked giggly but so far more than willing to participate. If only Sarah could have a whole group of politely enthusiastic kids.

Those three and Naomi are the only new kids, the rest of them faces Sarah saw around camp last year and even interacted with during some of the activities. (She had quite the experience on a canoe trip with Quinn that she's vowed not to repeat, but other than that most of the mixed-group activities are pretty good.)

She's found Madeleine to be consistently responsible, even going so far as to help her clean up a god-awful bird craft last year in the art cabin despite it not being her group's, and Sameera and Ava don't seem to give anyone trouble. Daniela's fine without Quinn and seems to care about keeping her space clean. Sophia, unfortunately, she continues to forget, with a name shared by five other girls this session and a face that could blend in with any crowd. Even though she had her in her canoe last year she still can't keep her in her mind.

She quickly checks the end of the log now to make sure she didn't leave Sophia behind, and Sophia smiles at her like they're in on some joke which only makes Sarah feel more guilty for not giving two shits about her.

Some people are just plain, she reasons. But still, it's a kid. She should know better.

The marshmallow roasting starts not long after, and despite wanting to see Rachel have to deal with the sticky mess of smores the older kids don't need much help. Cosima and Delphine across the fire are already covered in gooey marshmallow, their kids laughing and fighting over who gets the next one, Cosima sticking her dirty fingers in Delphine's face. Sarah smiles.

"Cute," Rachel says of the gesture, in a way that makes it sound entirely not cute.

Sarah rolls her eyes and shifts on the log so she can see Rachel, now that their kids are all at the fire with long pokers and their two logs are empty. Their half of the circle feels barren until Sarah tenses up at the sight of Paul joking around with Tony a couple logs over. She exhales and vows to ignore him if he tries anything.

"I'm curious what took place there," Rachel says, motioning over at Paul.

He's busy pretending to stab Tony with a poker as if they're fencing and Sarah's stomach muscles contract.

"How about none of your business," Sarah says.

Rachel makes a small noise and lifts her shoulders, acknowledging that Sarah's uncomfortable. "He seems like a bit of a dick," she says coolly.

A bubble of a laugh escapes Sarah's mouth. She could swear she sees Rachel smile at the sound but it's gone as quickly as it appeared.

"That's an understatement," Sarah says, wondering maybe if Rachel's cold exterior is only there because she's shy and doesn't know how to reach out. She feels like a bit of a dick herself for assuming so quickly.

Of course the button-down white shirt and pressed shorts she's wearing, to a campfire at the edge of the woods, isn't helping her case, but Sarah can overlook poor fashion taste if the girl just doesn't know how to make friends. The stick up her ass could just be preemptive self-defense.

"You know, some of the counselors dip out after lights out to hang by the boathouse," Sarah offers, chancing a smile in Rachel's direction. "You're welcome to come."

Rachel's little laugh sounds exactly like a slap in the face and Sarah regrets her moment of weakness.

"I'm not here to make friends, Sarah," Rachel says with the venom of whatever lurks in the forest that Sarah suddenly wants to shove her into.

"Oh, nice," Sarah snorts. "Noted. I'll be sure to spread that around."

Rachel tilts her head slightly and smoothes down her top as if nothing can disrupt her Zen moment. "Just as you're spreading yourself around camp, I hear. Or is there more to this Paul story that might redeem you."

Sarah swings her legs back around the log and grits her teeth. "No, that's about it. Guess you were just curious why, but I'm sure you've come up with your reasons."

She doesn't even flinch when Rachel looks her up and down and bites out a sharp _oh don't worry, I have_ as if this is some sort of verbal knife toss to which Sarah brought feathers. If this is how the bitch wants to play it, this is how it's going to be.

Sarah's only disappointed for the kids' sake.

/

The first full day of camp has Sarah ready to throttle someone and breakfast isn't even over yet.

Apparently the Quinn and Daniela feud is going to be The Event of the summer, with the kids quickly picking sides. (The only person on Quinn's side is Quinn. And tentatively Sophia, if Sarah's remembering correctly. Mostly she doesn't care.) Their half of the long table in the mess hall is silent, Quinn and Sophia joining Sarah on the one side and the remaining eight girls crammed in on the other, and all Sarah wants is a shitty cup of coffee. But every time she stands up, Quinn starts in on Daniela. And despite Daniela's reserve, her shields are quickly crumbling.

"I'm going to bloody kill somebody," Sarah sings very, very quietly under her breath, staring at the dry toast on a napkin in front of her.

She nicked it from Madeleine, who seemed to sense an extra piece was needed. All this drama and Sarah hasn't even been able to grab breakfast for herself. Madeleine also inquired about halal meals for Afsheen and Zohal, who were apparently too shy to ask for themselves; Sarah might as well ask Madeleine to take over for her at this point. If she could only handle Quinn.

"Looks like you could use this," Delphine says, appearing with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and two creamers.

"Delphine, you are a blessed creature." Sarah takes it from her and pours in the creamers, stacking the empty containers on the edge of her napkin once she's done.

Delphine sinks onto the bench next to her with a smile, somehow diffusing some of the tense energy amongst the girls so that a few of them actually manage to eat. She's looking ethereal this morning, her curls gleaming and her loose linen tank apparently the perfect thing for an angel to wear to breakfast, absolutely glowing under the flickering mess hall lights.

"Where's Cos?" Sarah asks after a few sips of coffee, just enjoying Delphine's company.

If someone had told her on her very first day that her two friends would be the French bitch and the white girl with dreadlocks she would have laughed her way home. She's glad she changed her tune.

"Ah, around, I suppose," Delphine says, looking out across the sea of banged up wooden tables. It's mayhem and Sarah doesn't blame her for flinching at a sudden rise of shouting; that's what they get for sharing space with the boys. "Or late, which actually is more likely. I should get her coffee as well."

Sarah frowns at her lot of girls and asks, "Are her kids that bad then?"

Delphine laughs. "No, not at all. We were just..."

"Up late? Gotcha." Sarah winks and laughs as well and the noise seems to offend her girls enough that a handful of them give in and start chatting.

"More or less," Delphine chuckles. "No, we have a good batch this year. My little ones are especially small, I believe. Some of them not yet six. But we only had two criers last night, so maybe tougher than I think."

Sarah shakes her head. "I don't know how you do it, mate. They're still _babies_. If I had a kid... well I can't say I'd be sending it off to camp at six, you know?"

Delphine nods in agreement, sipping her own coffee. "Well," she says, "it's easier handling them in that they still very much believe in magic. And their problems aren't so large."

She gestures at Sarah's girls (Quinn scowls) and lifts her shoulders, motioning that it is what it is.

Sarah might actually take criers over a night of bickering, now that she thinks about it. She nudges Delphine's foot with her own, to carry on the conversation without having to talk and also let her know that Cosima and the sevens are now entering the mess hall.

"Oh, there she is," Delphine says with a fond smile, her cheeks ever so slightly pink at the sight.

Madeleine catches it and whips around to spot Cosima, smiling to herself when she sees what the fuss is about. Sarah knew she chose right with that one.

"Well I should go," Delphine says, standing up and smoothing down her shorts where there aren't any wrinkles. "Enjoy the coffee. And the fight."

"Thanks again," Sarah says as Delphine takes off, meeting Cosima by the slightly shorter table where the six and seven year-olds are sitting with Art and Mark.

It's nice that the counselors of the young kids look out for each other, Sarah thinks. She can't imagine sharing a table with Paul and the eleven year-old boys, despite Naomi's forlorn looks at her brother across the room. Not to mention that the little kids are small enough to cram forty of them at one table.

Maybe if Tony had the eleven year-olds, and Rachel and Paul could go fuck themselves together. She's probably his type, actually; all cold and unfeeling, ready to treat him like the little boy he is. Sarah could see the two of them getting along quite well.

And then she wouldn't have to feel sick every time she thinks about Paul's hands on her body, because they'd be roaming someone else's soft skin and there'd be another girl to share the blame.

(She pauses, focusing on the rim of her cup, not wanting to acknowledge what the thought of hands on Rachel's skin did to her momentarily. Sarah's fucked up, but not _that_ fucked up.)

At the very least Rachel wouldn't feel bad for sleeping with Beth's boyfriend. Rachel doesn't feel anything.

At the thought of her Sarah seeks her out at the other end of the table, somehow sitting alone despite her kids filling the benches and perfectly poised with the same breakfast as Sarah – coffee and a dry piece of toast, though no doubt chosen by Rachel herself.

Uppity bitch, Sarah thinks.

"We're swimming today, right?" Naomi asks, tearing her eyes away from her brother.

There's a ripple through the table as her voice cuts through the newest wave of silence, and Sarah sighs inwardly at the course of her pathetic summer. Playing referee to the puberty squad.

"Yeah, after lunch," she replies.

"And we swim with the other eleven year-olds?" Naomi asks.

Sophia shifts her gaze at this, and Daniela looks down at her body. Sarah wants to take all her kids in her arms and tell them they're beautiful and don't need any boy's validation but they might see right through her and figure out she doesn't listen to her own words.

 _You're all so much better than me_ , she wills them to believe. _Probably even Quinn_.

"Yep, with the elevens." And Paul. Who Sarah feels like punching in the face just for making her feel this way.

Naomi smiles down at her plate, satisfied enough to start eating, and Sarah wishes it was possible to steal her brother or hand the two of them off to some other group so they could be together. (Obviously not with Paul though. She doesn't want to send anyone near him.) What Sarah knows of being apart from a sibling is enough to guess at how Naomi must feel.

She makes a mental note to call Felix later, to tell him how much she hates Rachel and still regrets Paul. He'd been afraid she'd fall right back into that the moment she saw him but apparently a year to seethe has done her good.

And her other sibling... She's not even sure she can use that word, knowing so little about her. Just that she was lost to the system and taken in by some crazies who dragged her to Europe, and is now back in Canada being deprogrammed or whatever. Mrs. S calls it healing, but Sarah remembers enough of the first eight years of her life to know some things don't heal.

She met her once, over a video chat set up by the woman who runs the home. Her twin. _Helena_.

Just seeing her goofy smile and mess of curls was enough to make Sarah miss her, all the time, even when she tries not to think about it. Sixteen years apart. Mrs. S traveled to Canada to find her five years ago, before Sarah even knew, just trying to fight for Sarah's family. And Sarah only got to see her face a year ago.

She'd been so desperate for connections... it isn't as if she blames it for Paul, but she'd been lonely, not yet taken in by Delphine and Cosima, and he seemed to care.

She's so _stupid_.

Paul laughs across the room and it booms all the way into her bones, setting her teeth on edge. If she could take it back she would in an instant. She wishes she could tell Beth that, desperately.

Part of her wants to get up and go tell Beth right now, despite Alison there at her side, clearly trying to make her laugh over what looks to be even less breakfast than Sarah's. Beth just staring blankly at the table and trying to force her lips into some shell of a smile for Alison. The kind of effort Sarah knows she doesn't give to Paul.

 _Fuck him, Beth. You don't need him_.

A sudden hand on hers jerks her out of her thoughts and she realizes it's Madeleine, trying to bring her back to earth.

"Daniela's crying," Madeleine says, motioning towards where Daniela's slumped over her plate in tears.

"Thanks, Madeleine," Sarah says as she shoots a withering glare to Quinn who was no doubt the cause. She's really starting to regret ever saying she wanted her back.

It's deal with Daniela in front of her current tormentor or leave her group alone, so she sucks it up and heads down the table to ask Rachel to watch them for a second. Rachel looks as if she might say something snotty but then catches Daniela crying and Quinn's silent jeers and just nods.

"The ten year-olds are so much less drama," Sarah exhales as Rachel scoots down the bench a little.

"Well," Rachel says, a tiny smile creeping across her lips, "I do have two Isabellas."

Sarah laughs, grateful for the moment to get out of her head. Rachel gives her another affirmative nod to signify that this is all she's getting but at this point, Sarah will gladly accept crumbs if they aren't soaked in poison.

/

Rachel finds herself sitting alone at the edge of the soccer field, supposedly meant to be leading her group in a soccer game but sent off the field by the specialty staff. It isn't her fault if she makes people nervous.

Still, she's the one by herself, perched on a rickety set of bleachers near archery that doesn't exactly build confidence in her. And from the top bench she can see Sarah Manning out of the corner of her eye, physically holding one of her children back from the arrows while trying to console another, something so wild and untethered despite the attempt to reign it in.

Of all the types of people Rachel expected to encounter at a summer camp she did not count on Sarah.

Little Miss Martha Stewart, of course. The resident pothead, yes. A French beauty? Not surprising. She'd even foreseen the likes of Paul and his unkempt cabin-mate Tony, who seems to choose not to shower. And yet something in her was so taken aback by Sarah Manning.

Even watching her now, pinning the bully child in place with a withering look, Rachel can't help but feel like some secret audience to a cleverly-written performance. While Sarah's moves aren't calculated or even considered she flows effortlessly, catching insults in midair and knowing exactly how to diffuse the situation.

It was for this reason Rachel had been tempted to call for her through their shared wall this morning, after watching her with the kids yesterday, to handle a fight that broke out over the one measly cabin shower.

In all honesty it was poor planning to build one shower for eleven people, and if there was room for four toilet stalls and a staff bedroom (if one can call it that, it's quite cramped) then surely there was enough space for a second shower. Nonetheless two of the girls were squabbling and all Rachel could do was stare helplessly, smoothing down her pyjama top, waiting for it to end. She'd relied on a _child_ to solve the crisis, how embarrassing.

(She'd blame her father for sending her here if she was still twelve and held grudges like that, all emotional and disgusting. But she does admit she wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't forced her to apply.)

Of course it isn't as if she'd come here thinking she'd be great at this; her experience with children is limited to minor babysitting and a few cousins back in England, who only really seemed to like her as a villain for their imaginative games.

The idea of spending her entire summer with a group of children depending on her was something she'd initially laughed at, but her father's will is strong and somehow he always gets what he desires. Her mother used to say that was where Rachel gets it from, back when- when she was still alive, and still someone who noticed these things.

Rachel runs her hands down the front of her blouse and folds them tightly in her lap. Of all the days to be thinking of her mother.

In the distance she can still hear Sarah Manning trying to mend the wound between two of her girls, voice sharp and tired, and Rachel forces herself to concentrate on her own girls running across the field – their young faces free of worry, hair flying out behind them as if trying to race the wind.

Even the girl with the limp, the small one, Sahar. Rachel hadn't even thought she might not be able to participate with the way her body slants but seeing her chasing the ball with the other kids has Rachel feeling somewhat taken aback. She'd underestimated her.

Last night she'd watched Sahar change into her pyjamas with the rest of the girls, not even batting an eye at the slight difference of her body being potentially on display, mentioning she didn't grow properly inside her mother when it seemed as if no one else would bring it up.

"So half of me's a little shorter, and kinda crooked," she said with a big smile, tugging on her pyjama pants.

Marlow took this opportunity to show everyone the bruise-like birthmark snaking down her back and then Isabella Weaver popped her knee out of place and then back in for everyone to see and it turned into a sort of talent show of the oddities of their small ten year-old bodies. Rachel stood in the doorway of her room and watched, for twenty minutes, waiting for crude remarks that never came.

She'd wondered if prejudice had simply disappeared in a generation until this morning, when Sarah's troublemaker child, the Hispanic one with unkempt hair, started in on a girl who could have been her twin for her weight. As if eleven year-olds need worry about such things.

Maybe Sarah's right – the ten year-olds are significantly less drama, as Sarah put it.

Or maybe Sarah's simply one of those people who causes mayhem around her wherever she goes; some kind of hurricane that drenches anyone within a certain range.

All Rachel can tell for sure at this point is that Sarah isn't someone Rachel cares to be around. And that, unfortunately, it seems as if that's what the summer has in store for her. She's considering purchasing a rain poncho.

/

They return to their cabin after lunch for quiet hour, something Rachel finds charming until she's actually in the cabin with her ten rowdy girls. Apparently 'quiet' means tossing pillows and bedding aside to make a fort and shouting across the cabin about whatever strange bug they spotted on their way back when the cabin's small enough to hear a whisper.

Rachel half considers dealing with it, leaning against one of the dressers with disdain. But then Clementine (she loathes the name, but the girl isn't all that bad) pulls out a deck of cards and the chaos subsides a little.

"Anyone for Pig?" Clementine asks, waving the cards above her head.

Rachel leaves them as they form a circle on the ground and half shuts the door to her counselor's room, enough to overhear anything she might need to deal with but also maintain her privacy. Day two and she's already considering setting up a hammock on the shared cabin porch.

It isn't so much that she minds the closet of a room, consisting of a single bed, a side table squeezed in beside it, and a dresser on the opposite wall to supposedly hold her clothes. She's waiting to unpack until she can snag some wax paper from the mess hall to properly line the cedar drawers.

Of course, she could do without the round mirror above the dresser, which is angled just enough to be able to see herself lying down on her bed and unsettling in the middle of the night. Maybe for others it wouldn't be so unnerving to catch a glimpse of themselves when they aren't paying attention but Rachel can't stand to see any weakness in herself.

Her main concern about the room though, apart from the electrical outlet that was carelessly built under the bed and is nearly impossible to get to, is that thanks to the mirrored construction of the cabins she's very much aware of the wall she shares with Sarah Manning. And that, in the middle of the night, she can hear her snoring lightly and has to picture the girl curled up in her own bed, probably oblivious to the mirror that captures her sleeping form.

She runs her fingers over the uneven shared wall now, wondering if Sarah's in her room or out in the cabin still trying to play referee with her girls. No sounds filter through that let her know either way and she drops her hand to her side.

This is Sarah's second year, she knows. It isn't as if Rachel's been gossiping, but the other staff do talk and Rachel can't help if she overhears.

What she's learned so far from listening in mostly amounts to Sarah having slept with Paul far enough into last summer to know of his girlfriend Beth, who seems to be enjoying herself even less than Rachel. No one talks about Beth, Rachel's noted. Or if they do her little housewife Alison comes at them like an untethered pitbull.

If Sarah regrets her tryst with Paul it isn't something she's advertising, and Rachel really doesn't have time to concern herself with why Paul might have done that in the first place. A small part of her feels sorry for Sarah but every time that surfaces she buries it as fast as she can. Sex doesn't happen by accident; Sarah could have said no.

Her door opening startles her, making her sit down hard on her bed and give a cold look to the child that opened it. Evie.

"Yes?" Rachel demands.

Evie pulls a strand of dark hair into her mouth, sucking on it nervously. "I don't want to play Pig anymore but the other girls say I have to."

"Well that's just ridiculous," Rachel says. "No one can force you to do anything."

She picks a piece of lint off her shorts and expects Evie to go back out but when she looks up Evie is still standing there, small and squat like a potato, blinking and watching Rachel as if she hadn't just responded.

"Yes?" Rachel says again, agitated.

Evie pulls another chunk of hair into her mouth and Rachel resists the urge to yank the hair away from her. What a disgusting habit.

"But they say I _have to_ ," Evie emphasizes.

If a child could be constructed to annoy then this would be that child. Rachel sighs and stands up, smoothing out the bedspread where she'd been sitting to get rid of the wrinkles. She may be in the middle of the forest but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

"Well let's go then," Rachel says, ushering the potato child out of her room.

The girls have made a cramped circle in the middle of the cabin with only a few of them pressed up against bunk beds and it looks to be an entertaining game, with how the kids slap the cards against the ground next to them. The few who notice Rachel standing on the edge of the room look up nervously but it's only at Evie's taunting noise that all heads rise.

"We just didn't want her to ruin things," Sierra rushes out, knowing full well what Rachel's about to say.

Sierra's statement is backed up by the two girls sitting next to her, Julisa and Raniyah, both of whose names Rachel only remembers because Sierra's barked them out so much in ordering them around. She's made a mental note to keep an eye on that alliance, decidedly not down for any kind of echo of the drama in Sarah Manning's group.

Not that Sierra's anything like Quinn, with her skinny limbs and teeth far too large for her jaw. Rachel wouldn't call her ugly but she definitely has prominent features that will take some time to grow into. But it isn't Quinn's prettiness that has the venom on her tongue – Rachel knows enough about girls to know better than that. There's always a reason for lashing out.

If Rachel were a better person she'd tell that to Sarah, but then Sarah might pin that statement back on her and the lack of alcohol at camp really has Rachel not wanting to hash that out.

"How could Evie leaving possibly ruin things?" Rachel asks in a bored tone, desiring nothing more than to be back in her tiny room staring at the wall.

Sierra glances at Julisa and Raniyah but it's Isabella Chang who speaks up.

"If she goes we have to rearrange the entire game," she says, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face. "Basically start over."

Rachel looks at the large analog clock ticking away above the door to the toilet. Twenty-five more minutes of quiet hour.

"The way I see it," she says, leaving her perch near the wall, "if the game isn't working then perhaps we should change the game."

A chorus of whining _nooos_ break out, along with _okay! We'll make it work_. Rachel shrugs as she paces towards the circle, bending down carefully to grab the box for the cards and then straightening up with a wicked smile.

"Why don't we see how quickly we can get these cards back in the box," she tells them.

A single card shoots across the circle and slices her ankle. The offending child makes eye contact defiantly, a grin slowly forming on her face, hand still in position to have released the card. All the girls divide their attention between her and Rachel, whose eyebrow simply raises.

"Olivia," she says coolly. "It now seems like you'll be the only one playing. And be sure to come see me later when the toilets need cleaning."

Olivia's eyes darken but fear keeps her mouth shut.

Evie shifts towards Rachel as if concerned the blame for ending the game will be placed on her, so Rachel adds, "and everyone else- in your bunks reading in five minutes or you'll all be giving this place a good scrub."

There's a low murmur of complaints as the girls heave themselves up off the floor, returning pillows and bedding to their bunks, Olivia angrily snatching all the cards off the ground to put away in the box Rachel lets flutter back down. Marlow and Sahar even furtively straighten out their toiletries on the top of their shared dresser, as if Rachel might spot this and give them all another punishment.

Consequence, Rachel reminds herself. Punishment makes it sound like the Dark Ages.

"I'll be on the porch should you need me," Rachel says as she darts back into her room to grab a book.

The girls all watch her warily as she comes back out through the cabin and the noise level rises a little as she lets the screen door slam behind her, though not enough to warrant sticking her head back in for a warning. She has enough faith that they'll figure out it's in their best interest to listen to her.

Letting Sarah Manning dole out the rules was not a wise decision, Rachel notes as she takes a seat on one of the benches on her half of the porch.

It isn't too hot out, warm enough to be comfortable in her shorts, and as she opens her book to the bookmarked page she decides this might be the first time she's come close to enjoying herself – in solitude, away from the kids, not a soul in sight except for a small cloud of mosquitoes above one of the picnic tables.

It's quiet for a good ten minutes until one of Sarah's friends stops by, the white one with dreadlocks who no doubt enjoys herself a good blunt or two. The moment she spots Rachel tucked away on the broad porch she freezes, strange little skirt swishing around her. But then a smile breaks out across her face and she's waving and approaching before Rachel can think to disappear.

"Hey," she says warmly, hopping up the steps. "I'm Cosima. With the six year-olds. Well, not _with_ them right now, obviously, they're with Delphine's kids right now, but, you know, generally with them."

"Of course," Rachel says in a toneless voice.

She doesn't get up or even close her book, but Cosima seems to take this as an invitation to join her anyway, dropping down on the bench beside her.

"Sarah hasn't really said much about you, but you're Rachel, right? First year?" Cosima asks.

Rachel wonders if there's a way to get up and leave without seeming rude. "Yes, that's right."

She's waiting for one of her children to come out and get her, another problem cropping up in the ten minutes she's been gone, but for once there's silence coming from inside and not even the wind has anything to say.

"Have you worked with kids before? You seem to know what to do to keep them quiet," Cosima says, motioning at the screen door.

A fly circles around Cosima's head and for a second Rachel wonders if something's died in there, left to decompose in the tangle of hair, but then it moves on and smacks aimlessly at the screen door until that too is deemed uninteresting enough to move on to Sarah's half of the porch.

"Yes," Rachel says again. She glances down at her open book, attempting to read at least a line while Cosima thinks up another question.

It's only as her eyes drift across the page that she realizes it's a lie, her having worked with kids before, and now Cosima sees her as someone who actually wants to be doing this and who applied herself. Horror seeps out and numbs her skin.

"I mean-" she says just as Sarah's door opens and Sarah comes tumbling out, hair a mess.

"Heeey," Sarah says with a big smile, Cosima getting up to hug her. "Hey, Rachel. You been getting to know Cos?"

"She has," Cosima answers for her, also smiling.

Rachel wonders if they know how to frown around each other. Probably, if they're good enough friends. But the way Sarah now keeps Cosima a good six inches away from her has Rachel thinking they might not be as good friends as Cosima believes. Certainly not close enough for Sarah to share any of her secrets with her.

And there's something Rachel can find admirable about Sarah: she knows enough to keep secrets to herself, if Rachel's intuition is correct.

"I'm impressed," Sarah's saying now. "Rachel, I thought you weren't here to make friends."

It's a teasing tone, only further annoying Rachel.

"I'm not a fan of social gatherings," Rachel says, which doesn't seem to help her case.

Sarah and Cosima glance at each other and crack up and Rachel's left feeling small on her little wooden bench. She isn't a fan of social gatherings, but that doesn't exactly seem to be what they're laughing about.

"Ookay there," Sarah says. Her smile slips a little and then she's clearing her throat and brushing hair out of her face, her movements wide and loose.

Rachel lets her hand slip down to smooth out a crease in her shorts, focusing on getting out any remainder of the fold.

"Um," Cosima says, shifting her weight, "well I just stopped by to let Sarah know we're thinking of having a little campfire tonight, just the staff."

"Is that allowed?" Rachel asks, silently scolding herself for the childish edge to her voice.

Cosima laughs. "Well, the director looks the other way. No biggie. I'd invite you, but seeing as you don't like social things..."

She looks over again to Sarah as if this is some joke between them and Sarah manages a smile in return, suddenly a full foot away from Cosima and a hand on the cabin wall to brace herself. For what Rachel doesn't know.

"Yeah, no, invite her anyway," Sarah says, frowning a little. "She might surprise us all and say yes one day, you never know."

"Oh I wasn't trying to be rude," Cosima apologizes, hands flying everywhere. It's a bit mesmerizing.

Rachel shuts her book and gives them both a harmless enough smile as she stands up. "I am not someone who appreciates pity invites," she says. "And it was nice to meet you, Cosima."

With that she pushes past them and heads back into her cabin, letting the screen door slam again behind her and startling all ten girls who are in their bunks reading. She can hear Sarah and Cosima saying something out on the porch, no doubt about her, but she chooses not to listen. She'd meant what she said about making friends; all she promised her father was that she'd stay until the end of the summer. He didn't ask her to play nice.

But then again maybe he should have, she considers as her girls glance up at her fearfully.

Maybe he should have taught her how to when she was still small and stupid enough to learn.

/

Rachel is dragged to the arts and crafts cabin after quiet hour by her group of girls, who are so excited to glue pieces of paper to other pieces of paper that they end up running half the way there and leaving Rachel behind to kick up clouds of dry dirt. Surely the camp could afford to seed all the grassless stretches.

When she gets there, no doubt a dust cloud herself, her girls are dispersed at two tables with another group – Alison's, who eyes Rachel with as much disdain as Rachel feels for this whole experience as she tries to slip in quietly.

Only Clementine seems to notice Rachel come in, her head of dark curls bouncing as she quickly looks away.

Alison rushes over as soon as the door shuts and gives a sharp wave to the art specialist waiting at the front. "Now that we're all here, Emily, why don't you begin."

Emily has a spread of craft supplies on the table in front of her and a smile so bright Rachel wishes she brought sunglasses but the children have their eyes trained on her, eagerly awaiting her instructions. If Rachel wanted to hear them herself she's out of luck as Alison pinches her sleeve and drags her into a corner to whisper harshly at her.

"Irresponsibility is _not_ tolerated here," Alison starts, her eyes cold and beady like an angered bird of prey.

Rachel's starting to understand why no one talks about Beth.

"Of course," Rachel says.

Her girls are already uncapping their glue bottles at the table and no one seems to be concerned by the mess that's about to happen but Alison refuses to let her attention drift.

"Excuse me," she says, tapping Rachel's arm. "But I don't think you understand. How is it to look when your children show up _without_ you?! Just running willy-nilly, no one to keep them from tearing the place apart. Lucky I was here to seat them. Of course this is your first year, I know, and we're supposed to be tolerant."

 _Kind_ was the word the director used, Rachel remembers. Considerate.

She purses her lips and attempts to look properly admonished, really not wanting to have Alison coming at her like this for the entire summer.

"Well," she says, "they did run ahead."

Alison's cheeks are pink. Whether it's anger or exhaustion from whispering so fiercely Rachel can't tell, but backed into a corner it's a sure sign she isn't going to win this.

"I'm sure you'd say the same thing if they all ran into the lake and drowned," Alison says before whipping around and heading back over to her side of the room.

Rachel isn't going to follow her but she would, selfishly, like to point out that every child here is able to swim and the lake is never without a lifeguard during daylight hours. Still, she sees the point. If her children run again it had better be towards Alison, and with weapons.

She slowly shifts out of the corner and makes her way across the perimeter of the room, taking in the cupboards and open shelving of every type of art supply available. It seems wasteful to be making crafts that will just get thrown out at home, but all the girls are hunched over small piles of popsicle sticks as if there's nowhere else they'd like to be and Rachel can't fault them for their lack of foresight.

On the other side of the room Alison stares intently at the art specialist, Emily, who's doing nothing more than supervising the disaster playing out on the tables in front of her. It seems as if Alison's waiting for a slip-up or for that smile to falter and it must be such an exhausting way to live life, needing to be the one to monitor everything in case something should go wrong.

She wonders how exactly Alison came to be Beth's; if Beth had a choice in the matter or if Alison just decided one day to care for her, and each day following Beth simply put up with it.

It doesn't seem from watching her that Beth could _want_ Alison around – but then Rachel doesn't truly know Beth either, only guessing at the cause of the hollowness of her expression, and maybe Alison feels things twice as much for the both of them. If it's symbiosis Rachel has to wonder what Alison gains from this.

(Especially, she notes as Alison rewraps a spool of fishing line, with Beth so firmly planted in her distant relationship with Paul. Alison must know nothing will ever come of her wanting.)

The last thing she wants is to be caught staring at Alison when the girl is a grenade ready to go off so she busies herself with a shelf of construction paper, spending the whole arts and crafts period lining up the different colors so perfectly they all look like solid rectangular blocks. Sahar comments on it as they're putting their structures in the window to dry; a little acknowledgment that it looks a whole lot better.

If Alison notices she doesn't mention it. Her girls are lined up at the door and ready to go as the gong sounds in the distance, signaling an activity change, and the group filters out the door so calmly it's as if they practiced. Rachel just lumps her girls together and directs them to start walking to the archery fields and as they all bump into each other and chatter she wishes she'd agreed to any other job than this.

The only thing worse than being a camp counselor is knowing she's doing a mediocre job of it. And now, knowing Alison knows as well.

It weighs on her the entire time her kids are supposedly learning the lost art of archery, essentially shooting at each other with flimsy arrows and ignoring the specialist's instructions. Of course she could step in and help but it isn't as if she's being paid the specialist rate to teach the activity, so she stands to the side with a grumpy Evie and wishes she cared enough to try to be better.

"Am I-" _terrible_ , she goes to ask, after a stretch of silence without Evie's sighs, but the girl stares up at her with hair in her mouth and Rachel tells her to never mind.

The last thing she needs is to start asking others their opinion of her, and _children_ at that. When she cares what they think she'll truly have lost it.

/

Sarah spends her afternoon fielding insults from Quinn, who, apart from making Daniela cry three separate times in two hours, has now decided Sarah is her new target.

It wasn't so bad when the kids were swimming and Sarah laid out to tan on the dock, taking Delphine's advice from last year to never get in the water unless the lifeguards absolutely _insist_ , but then Paul saw the opportunity to join her and instead of snide remarks of how wide her hips are and the stress zit that's trying to form on her chin she had to deal with Paul.

The second he sat down next to hear she instantly regretted wearing a bikini. Even a diving suit would have felt too revealing, but his gaze dragged down her bare skin to the chipped black paint on her toenails and she had to resist the urge to scrub his slime off of her. As if just by breathing his air she was poisoning herself.

"You're fully capable of fucking off," she told him, shielding her eyes with an arm so she didn't have to look at him, but his laugh seeped in anyway.

Ten minutes in she wrapped herself in a towel and stood angrily by the lifeguard's chair, not caring to learn the poor kid's name but listening to him rattle on about all his training just to make the time pass quicker. (And, honestly, to see the look on Paul's face as he watched her smile at another guy.)

Her luck has only improved since, with Quinn catching the moment between her and Paul on the dock and latching on with a vice grip. All through soccer, all through a quick game of Octopus, all through this crappy hike in the woods. She definitely assigned partners but somehow Quinn is at her side, making kissing noises and occasionally tripping over rogue roots.

At least it isn't Daniela. The girl seems to even be relaxing a little, at the back with Madeleine and the cousins. Anything that breaks Quinn's focus from her is worth it, even if it means wearing the target for however long this continues.

Which won't be much longer with how Quinn's carrying on. Sarah has resisted the urge to slap her so far, but her long-winded narration of whatever she imagines taking place between Sarah and Paul is getting borderline explicit and Sarah has had enough.

"O _kay_ ," she grunts, putting a hand over Quinn's mouth.

Everyone sort of stumbles a little as they take in the crude action but nobody manages to fall.

Sarah recoils as Quinn licks her palm, snatching her hand back and wiping it on her shorts with a grimace. "That's disgusting," she tells her.

Quinn's dark eyes flash.

"So are you and-"

"Yeah?" Sarah interrupts. "Well I don't wanna hear it."

"Well if you didn't want to hear it why'd you do it?" Quinn provokes, her sneer wide even as she trips over a rock and has to grab onto Sarah's side to stay upright.

It isn't even too hot to complain about being forced to hike, but Sarah's covered in sweat and has dirt steaks up her legs and with Quinn clutching her shirt with her little claws it's just _too much_.

She stops.

And the girls all stop behind her, bumping into each other, but more or less still standing.

"Another mushroom?" Sameera asks, trying to peer around the group.

Sarah takes in a deep breath and stares up at the canopy of green above her, ignoring the voices for one bloody second of relief. Then she comes back to earth and pries Quinn's hands off her and drops down into the dirt like her main goal was to bring them up here to sit.

The girls stare at her before a couple of them sit down as well.

"My legs hurt," Ava says, taking a seat in the dry leaves and dirt.

"I'm tired," Zohal agrees as she joins her.

Most of them are sitting before Quinn finally speaks again, and this time it's in a quiet voice as if Sarah's taken the fight out of her. "You're crazy," she says.

Sarah nods and pats the ground next to her. "Side effect of hanging around you. Come on, sit."

Quinn relents and sits down and Sophia and Raya finally sit as well. The whole group is cross-legged in the dirt, backpacks still on like a pack of sweaty turtles. If Sarah had any energy left she might whip out her camera to capture this awful moment.

To her surprise none of them ask why they've stopped in the middle of their hike to sit in the path, instead just quieting down enough so that all they hear is birds hidden away in the trees and the soft rustle of a breeze slipping through the forest. It's the closest to nature Sarah's felt in a while, being from the city, and she shuts her eyes to take it all in: the slight pant of their breathing, the distant bird calls, the cicadas that she hadn't noticed until now.

"When I was little I used to think that sound was sunlight," Sarah says of the hum, and the kids listen until they hear what she's talking about.

"What is it?" Quinn asks.

Madeleine answers for her in the first pleasant interaction Quinn's had with another kid all day and Sarah contemplates staying in the forest forever.

"Can we play Eye Spy?" Afsheen asks, looking up at the trees.

From where they sit nearly everything looks green, glowing so brightly against the dark dampness of the forest floor it's almost neon. Sarah can't imagine what they could find in here to actually guess at but says "go ahead" nonetheless, happy to rest for a bit and to not have to pretend to know what kind of animal poop they've spotted by a tree.

The game lasts for about fifteen minutes, everyone quickly growing tired of the color green, but in that time Sarah sits next to Quinn and tries to remind herself of all her good qualities.

There was a reason Sarah hoped she came back this year – it's only as Quinn withdraws from the game and lets her head rest against her knees that Sarah remembers why. She'd seemed like a puzzle last year, some kind of bomb whose explosion could be avoided if anyone figured out what built her. Sarah only really saw her in passing, but figured, with her own turbulent childhood, she might stand a chance at getting closer to the core of it.

And now with Quinn sitting next to her, walls down for just a moment, Sarah decides there must be a reason she's Quinn's latest target. Maybe it's like trying to fight herself.

She reaches out and brushes a knot back into place in the rest of Quinn's tangle of hair, ignoring the look Quinn gives her as she peeks up from her knees. Her hand lingers on Quinn's forehead and she thumbs the skin a bit, just appreciating this rare softness to her face; the lack of anger making her hard.

"What?" Quinn whispers, still hugging her knees and looking incredibly small in the dirt.

Sarah gives Quinn's cheek a little pat. "You're not a bad kid, you know."

It's brief, the second of gratitude on Quinn's face before someone shouts out a guess and Quinn buries herself in armor. Sarah tries to cling to it as Quinn sours.

"You think I've never heard that before?" Quinn says, standing up and brushing herself off. "I'm awesome."

Sophia's head raises. "Are we going?"

Naomi and Raya stand up, wobbling a bit with their backpacks and wiping the dirt from their bare legs and Sarah relents that the moment of peace is over. She motions for everyone else to get up and heaves herself upright, wishing nothing more than to be back in her bed, door shut, pretending she can't hear their whispering or the weird pacing of Rachel through the shared cabin wall.

"Come on, meatheads," she says as she rubs at her eyes. "We'll hike back and see if there's time to get cleaned up before dinner."

Afsheen and Daniela are busy poking each other teasingly but the rest of the girls are more or less getting back in their clump, Madeleine dutifully herding them from the back. It isn't as if Sarah demanded straight lines or anything when she started out but she does like to pretend she's kind of organized, so seeing them get their shit together without her prompting feels pretty good; like despite Quinn's antics it might not be the summer of hell she'd conceded to having.

As she tightens the consistently looser strap of her backpack, some crappy little thing her foster mum has apparently had since the eighties, Quinn gently bumps into her arm.

"I've abandoned my partner," she says as if Sarah hadn't already figured this out.

Sarah pulls the strap back over her shoulder like this might ready her for hiking all the way back. "I know, Quinn."

In all honesty she'd envisioned more of a feel-good nature walk when she planned her counselor-led activity for the day, just putting the word 'hike' on paper to make it seem more legit. If she'd remembered about the incline of this certain path she would have decided on canoeing (watching her kids flip without helping them for forty minutes) or some bullshit like jewelry-making.

She's pretty sure Alison booked the art cabin for this activity block though anyway, hell-bent on teaching her eight year-olds the lost art of macramé.

Quinn nudges her arm again now, her hair somehow even messier than five minutes ago. "She's in good hands though," Quinn promises. "I left her with Raya and Naomi."

Sarah glances back to what's slowly looking like two lines, where Ava is sure enough with Raya and Naomi, looking relieved to be free from her assigned partner. At her look Madeleine physically starts to move people into place with the exact Day Two exasperation Sarah's been feeling since the bugle sounded this morning.

"So I can be your partner," Quinn says, and Sarah notices she's latched on to her arm.

"Yeah, sure." It's no use fighting it at this point.

Either Quinn's going to use the whole hike back to taunt her about Paul or she'll finally learn to be quiet, which is almost more unsettling. Both cases Sarah ends up paying more attention to the kid beside her than where her feet are landing. Both cases she'll probably end up falling before they make it back to camp.

"Got everything?" she asks the group, who call back an unconvincing _yes_.

Whatever. If they leave their shit here, they'll learn how quickly a person gets over loss.

She leads her stumbling, non-athletic group back down through the tangle of roots and rocks, her own feet slipping carelessly over piles of dry leaves. God forbid she ever have to do this after a rainstorm. It'd be like a giant, muddy slip-n-slide.

One of the girls in the back starts singing a campfire song, something about the Titanic, and within minutes the whole group behind her has joined in. She'll never understand what's so appealing about group singing but so long as they're happy she's not going to stop it. And even Quinn, so snug against Sarah's side her arm is slick with sweat, seems to be humming along a little.

She feels like capturing the moment to send to Cosima later, to finally have proof that Quinn's not the demonic force they've all seemed to paint her as.

Maybe a little evil, but Sarah probably wasn't too far off at eleven either. She should ask Mrs. S.

All she really remembers about that age is that Mrs. S seemed to care enough about her to legitimize her guardianship that year in the spring, which mostly felt like a slap in the face when Mrs. S said it was needed to move to Canada the year after. And the hot, simmering anger that's been with her as long as she can think back. And sometimes, if she concentrates hard enough, she can conjure up the scent of the tiny flat they were living in at that time – cigarettes and cabbage, and a damp mustiness they never quite got rid of.

If they'd had enough to send her to a summer camp back then she probably would have given Quinn a run for her money, with how frustrated she still was with so much of her life. Maybe it's for the best she never hung out with many kids.

This time last year she was stumbling through this same forest, ankles bloody from kicking up sticks, chasing her kids in what Paul thought would be a great game of Manhunt until the gong sounded for dinner. Different kids of course, but the same chilled feeling of needing to compare and contrast her own life to the laughing screaming kids surrounding her. As if locating that divide between them will somehow mend the chasm in herself, and she'll be a better counselor for it, and they won't always make her think the worst.

Not all of them come from dark pasts, Delphine reminded her last year.

But it still seems like it, the sun cutting deep through the trees as it tries to sink into the lake. She's a full year ahead and still finds herself rolling the thought around on her tongue like a splintering glass marble, leading them back to the cabin, just waiting for a shard to draw blood.

It's only as they're washing up for dinner in a sweaty haze that she finds dried beads of blood along her ankles where anything could have grabbed her this time.

/

One of the shittier parts of camp always seems to be the food, tonight's meatloaf no exception despite Madeleine's futile attempt to salt and pepper some life back into it. But they've all managed to evenly space themselves out at the table this evening, something Sarah almost wishes hadn't happened with little elbows finding her sides every time the conversation rises up in excitement. Even Quinn seems a little more docile from her spot at the end of the bench.

The rest of the hall is equally animated – and yet Paul and Tony somehow cut through the noise with their banter from the other side of the room, as boisterous as their kids. If Sarah put in earplugs she could probably still hear it.

Naomi's been watching her since Quinn started in on her with the Paul shit, still eyeing her occasionally every time Paul's voice filters over to their table. She'd tell her it's nothing if she could manage to convince herself. Her girls aren't stupid, obviously picking up on Paul's flattery and wandering hands. She just has to hope they aren't taking this in as something to want from a boy.

She's been surveying the room to keep an eye on things in an attempt to force her thoughts elsewhere, eager to get away from Paul and the lumpy meatloaf. Even with mashed potatoes it's a strange paste.

Delphine waves every so often until Cosima gets there, the two of them huddled on the bench as if parents of their twenty tiny kids. The boys are all piled together on the one side of the room, Rudy and Seth doing their best to keep their kids quiet as Paul and Tony wind them all up, little bits of food flying across the tables that no one seems to notice. Beth is... present. Hands folded in her lap, Alison talking vigorously beside her as their girls chatter away. A few of them are singing a song Sarah doesn't recognize and she dreads having to lead any activity with Alison this summer, knowing she'll come away from it with a dozen new songs stuck in her head.

She glances back to Beth one last time before turning back to her table, wishing staring at her every day was enough for Beth to know she's sorry, wanting to pull her outside for a conversation she's not brave enough to have.

 _He made me feel a little less lonely. Now he makes me nauseous and I don't know how you stand it_.

She accidentally catches Quinn's eye, unable to look away before Quinn notices the unguarded guilt on her face. All she gets is a weird quirk of the eyebrows and then Quinn's back to poking at her meatloaf but it still sits hard in Sarah's throat.

She needs to get her shit together before it starts affecting her kids.

The worst she could do would be drag them into this.

A sudden swell of laughter from the other end of the table draws her attention to Rachel's group, where Rachel has somehow put smiles on all the kids' faces and is either a magician or knows a truly impressive joke the way they're beaming at her. Maybe she's just one of those people who does better with kids than people their own age, Sarah decides.

All she knows is that she's not looking to start another fight at camp, too tired already from what she accidentally did to Beth (and by proxy, Alison) to intentionally burn anything with Rachel. If the girl doesn't want to hang out with the rest of the staff then that's on her; Sarah will keep inviting her as long as it's still polite and no one can fault her for it. She'll even put up with Rachel's imploring remarks about Paul, knowing she'll hear enough soon anyway to satiate her curiosity and move on to something more interesting. Something happening this summer, even.

She smiles when Rachel looks her way and takes a tiny bit of pride in the fraction of surprise she catches in Rachel's eyes – as if Rachel was looking for the same cold front in return, not knowing what to do with kindness.

This is a game Sarah can play. This kind of manipulation is what she does best.

She forgets about it during the rest of dinner, with Quinn refueling and targeting Raya this time instead, decidedly not a fan of the little braids she wears in her hair and making this known to the group. Another meal, another catfight. But Raya seems to almost be expecting it and simply ignores it, shifting a little towards Daniela to carry on her conversation, and despite a few more attempts from Quinn to keep the tirade going it dies out by the time Sarah's walking them over to the rec hall for movie night.

One might even call her girls friendly as they laugh with each other in the encroaching dusk, swatting away mosquitoes and running ahead of Sarah in a way Alison would totally chastise.

But she lets them anyway, choosing instead to breathe in the humid July air and follow behind them like an ageing sheepdog, an eye on everyone but also removed enough to let them feel some sort of independence. The rec hall isn't too far a walk. Just down the path from the cabins, edging on the forest but still enough in a clearing to not need flashlights.

She catches up with them as the grass starts up again, hopping up the creaky wooden steps to the hall to grab the screen door from Naomi. All the groups are filtering over here to watch some sappy kids movie before bed so she'll no doubt run into Alison at some point. Better at at least look like she's trying.

"Can I sit with my brother?" Naomi asks after Sarah thanks her for holding the door.

Paul has his boys up against the side of the room, the lot of them taller than everyone else by a head and yet somehow still small in Paul's presence. She hates how he only knows how to dwarf people. Naomi's brother Nate seems to be one of the quieter kids, actually sitting down, another quiet boy with him, and Sarah's sure the groups will get all mixed up as soon as the movie starts anyway.

"Yeah, I don't see why not," she says, smiling back as Naomi grins at her.

Naomi glances over at where the rest of their group's converging at an open spot of floor, too close to Beth's group for Sarah's liking. The big hall suddenly feels a whole lot smaller.

"Can I bring Raya?" Naomi asks.

Raya trots over at hearing her name and Sarah laughs. "Yeah, of course," she says. "Enjoy yourselves."

Naomi practically drags Raya to the other side of the room, her brother's face lighting up as she drops down to sit with him and his friend. Sarah had forgotten how much they resemble each other until seeing them together again – they somehow even move the same. She wonders if Helena moves at all like her.

"The rest of you can sit where you want," she tells her remaining girls, but they all seem content to just sit where they've been standing on the edge of Beth's group.

Sarah catches a glimpse of Beth's dark bun and instantly stills, expecting someone to shout at her from somewhere. Obviously unrealistic but she's been having Alison nightmares ever since they parted ways last summer.

Beth comes over to her almost by accident, her movements so subtle Sarah hardly realizes they're standing next to each other until Beth's fingers graze her arm. Then they just stand there and survey their girls and Sarah doesn't notice she's listening to Beth's soft breathing even with the din of the room until it stops. And Beth glances over at her, and Sarah's stomach twists.

"I didn't know if you'd come back," Beth says, almost a murmur.

Out of the corner of her eye Sarah's scanning the room for Alison, who either isn't here yet or is behind her with a knife just waiting for her to mess up.

It's the first time Beth's talked to her since last summer, not even giving her a word when they were paired up for a trust exercise during orientation week that they both buggered up (by accident or on purpose she's still not sure), and it's surreal; the kind of thing she pictured a thousand times after the summer ended, never once coming up with a decent way to handle it.

"Well," she says stupidly, feeling Beth tense up beside her, "you know, it's hard to stay away."

It's possibly the worst thing she could have said. Quinn pops up from the group as if she might come over with a complaint to save Sarah and it's the only time Sarah's ever looked forward to her whining but then she's back down again, apparently only needing to see what's happening.

Beth finally chuckles a little and shakes her head. "You've got that right."

Sarah manages a smile and even turns to see more than just half of Beth's face, not taking in until now how pretty she is under the exhaustion. Paul obviously has a type.

She considers just drifting away and pretending to chat up literally anyone else in here, maybe even one of the sports specialists who's trying to set up the projector, but Beth lets out a soft breath and Sarah just can't.

"Does it bother you that they still talk about it?" she asks, her ears burning as she speaks.

Beth tilts her head, maybe watching one of her girls or maybe listening for the creak of Alison behind them ready to pounce. Then she smiles, somehow even sadder than Sarah could imagine.

"Does it bother you?"

Sarah's tongue is suddenly too big for her mouth and she didn't have a real answer anyway, probably something pathetic and too nice and pandering to what she knows Beth doesn't want, but Alison finally does appear (late, with one of her girls bandaged up) and practically snatches Beth away and Sarah's left standing on her own as Alison snakes her arm through Beth's where Sarah had just been.

Maybe she's trying to cleanse her or something. Like Sarah's a poison.

She takes a seat on one of the tiny benches at the back of the room, knowing as the lights dim that she won't be able to see a thing but really not caring about A Bug's Life. Twenty minutes into it she's joined by Rachel, who, in the dark, is almost comforting, and nothing makes sense anymore.

/

Back when Sarah was young, she and Felix would play a game in the park near their flat that essentially consisted of them pretending to be lost in the woods and confronting great dangers. In retrospect it was a decent way for two foster kids to deal with some of the helplessness they felt in the system, Mrs. S always sipping tea on a bench nearby. But every time she walks through the forest at camp she can't help thinking about it – how convinced they were that monsters lurked in the shadows, and that they alone could defeat them.

Last year about a few weeks in she called Fe and asked if he remembered, and of course he did but she couldn't convey the exact reason she needed to tell him and it just sounded stupid. Like she was trying to hold onto something they clearly didn't need any more.

Maybe he's learned to compartmentalize these things better than she has; maybe at thirteen it doesn't matter, that they were once small and scared and trying desperately to deal with that.

She's thinking about it all again tonight, loudly making her way through the forest to get to the campfire, her girls all in bed, knowing full well an easy path could take her straight to the fire pit but for some reason in the woods despite that. She'd walked her girls back along the edge of the forest as well when the movie was over, just needing to confront it. To see that... maybe to see that it didn't really matter if it was empty or not.

Most of her would much rather be in her bed right now, ignoring the sounds of Rachel's fucked up little bedtime routine through the wall. But she told Cosima she'd come to the fire and someone always has alcohol (although realistically she could always just drink her own back at the cabin, having enough to last her probably two summers here) and after making a big show of inviting Rachel she'd be a flake to not show up herself. The last person she expects to see at the campfire is Rachel anyway, but on the off chance that Rachel decides to surprise everyone she wants to be there. To at least see.

A sudden cracking noise from somewhere closer to the path makes her jump, skin crawling with how much it sounds like footsteps.

Obviously she knows it isn't any of the monsters she and Felix imagined when they were kids (maybe she should have brought it up when she called him tonight though, just to hear him laugh about it) but the sound grows steadily closer until she can see a form in the light from the distant mess hall and her throat constricts.

It's- bloody Rachel?

She nearly laughs but instead hangs on to the side of a tree to stay hidden. Not like Rachel could see her in the darkness anyway, wearing all black and a probably tangible cloud of bug spray.

Rachel's in what looks like a pyjama set, something shiny and white, and not at all heading in the direction of the campfire but straight for the mess hall – if Sarah didn't know any better she'd say she was breaking in. Or, walking in. They don't exactly lock it in case the supervisory staff want anything.

She holds her breath until Rachel's small form has disappeared into the door, gone into the light.

Maybe the girl has some secret food habits she doesn't want to share, or has learned she can't exist on coffee and dry toast alone. (Sarah did _not_ miss the way Rachel's plate was devoid of meatloaf or mashed potatoes – just a sad piece of what they called garlic bread and some steamed broccoli.)

Sarah smacks her flashlight against her leg to try and get the weak beam a little brighter and then goes on towards the fire, not needing to dwell on this as well.

It's a pretty decent turnout tonight; some of the counselors from the senior camp, housing the twelve-to-fifteen year olds, came down through the hills everyone calls The Mountains, Sarah's favorite bubbly drunk Krystal already pouring what looks to be champagne. Shay, the eccentric blonde Cosima's admitted to crushing on a few years back, is giving out massages across one of the logs and Sarah knows she doesn't have to look far to find Cosima and Delphine.

They're on one of the half-log benches behind the big logs, under an unnecessary blanket watching Shay with varied expressions. Cosima must have told Delphine about her crush but Sarah's not sure she's taking it as pleasantly as she's pretending.

"There's the woman of the hour," Paul cries out as Sarah half emerges from the shadows.

The crowd looks up, Sarah trying to mask her grimace as a smile as Paul comes over. Krystal waves with a drink in her hand like they've never helped each other vomit before and Delphine rises slightly in case Sarah needs assistance. She gives her an appreciative nod as she swerves away from Paul's open arms.

"Yeah, got a bit caught up in some kid drama," she excuses, running a hand through her hair and joining some of the other guys on a log.

It's the only spot she can guarantee Paul won't follow, being flanked by the brothers and that weird rockabilly guy from the senior camp. Still, he brings her a drink a second later, his gestures wide to show her he means no harm.

She'd like to show him how much harm _she_ means.

He goes back to where he and Tony are constructing some sort of stick house with kindling, close enough to the fire to be a concern to anyone sober, but if the quiet Christian girl from the senior camp who mainly comes to take care of Krystal (and sometimes flirt with Mark) isn't concerned then Sarah's not going to bother herself with it. Besides, the more they're focused on their sticks the less she has to worry he'll go and say something stupid to make it all worse.

Probably the only saving grace of these fires is that Beth rarely shows up anymore, Alison even less. Sarah can't imagine what she'd do if Paul even breathed near her with Alison watching.

Beth used to be a staple at these things, according to Cosima, back when she and Paul were in their honeymoon phase and everyone was seriously convinced they'd get engaged as soon as Beth hit eighteen. But then she just... _lost it, a little_ , Cosima called it. Disappeared into herself in a way they hadn't seen before, something much more than her bouts of withdrawal they were all kind of used to.

Sarah's first campfire she'd watched Beth sit quietly at Paul's side, like a bag he was afraid to set down, while he played guitar and downed beers and talked to nearly everyone but his girlfriend.

A few beers in Sarah tried to approach Beth to ask if she was okay or something (she just remembers needing to check in with her, not really understanding it) but Paul stepped in between them – literally separated the two of them, and Beth didn't say a word when his hand crept down Sarah's back. Sarah wanted to say something then.

 _Tell him it's not okay_. Or _tell me to stay away from him_ , anything she's learned to expect from the girls who hang around guys who want her.

Beth looked away. And then the next campfire she sat with Art, and the next one Sarah didn't see her at all.

"Is everything all right?" Delphine's standing beside her now, looking down at her with a plastic cup in her hand.

The brothers are gone and the log beside her is empty and she wonders when that happened.

"M'good," she swears. The little gesture with her own cup doesn't go too well, but she's only drunk about half of it so she can't even blame it on the alcohol.

Delphine frowns at the response but then the smoke blows in their direction and whatever she was going to say is eaten up by the dark plumes.

"I hate white rabbits," Cosima says as she comes up behind Delphine with something that clearly isn't champagne.

Delphine smiles and dips her head, effortlessly letting Cosima into her side. "You know I hate that expression. It makes no sense to me."

Sarah can definitely remember hearing Shay say it at some point, maybe last year right around the time she was holding back Krystal's hair in the mouth of the woods and trying to drunkenly encourage the vodka vomiting without losing it herself.

She tries to bite back a grin as Cosima surreptitiously sneaks a glance at the massage log.

"Yeah, it's a little..." Cosima does a funky hand gesture, spraying Sarah's bare legs with her drink in the process. "Oh shit, Sarah, I'm so sorry, let me-"

And then she's squatting down trying to wipe it off with the sleeve of her flimsy cardigan, which is essentially sheer and non-absorbent. Rum, Sarah realizes, by the smell. Someone's been holding out. Delphine joins the clean up as well, this time providing the blanket they were sitting under before and sort of wrapping Sarah's legs in it once they're dry.

It's not really cold, and they aren't really drunk, but Sarah appreciates it anyway.

Sometimes going through the motions makes her feel better.

"You know I saw Rachel on my way here," she starts to say as the girls sit down with her, but then they're saying something to each other that she doesn't catch and neither of them hear her.

She's not sure what they'd say about that anyway; Cosima thinks Rachel needs to be taken down a peg, based on their one meeting, and Delphine, while not yet having the joy of a real conversation has done some observing, believes she isn't suited for the camp environment and it's a matter of time before she cracks.

Which, yeah, to both of them. But Sarah also saw the way Rachel faltered when she and Cosima were laughing at the social gathering comment and maybe it's more than this. Or just something else.

In a weird, backwards and fucked up way she kind of reminds Sarah of Beth. But that's not something she can share. Not when everyone seems to believe Sarah only fucked Paul to hurt Beth, like any of that was a planned action. They'd just hear that she thinks Beth's a cold bitch as well and completely write her off.

God, the last thing Paul was is planned. She'd promised– well, not really her family but herself, that she'd stay boy-free that summer. No drama. No repeats of the same destructive patterns that have been plaguing her for years.

"There's no one there like Vic, yeah?" Felix had asked the very first time she phoned home.

She'd sworn on her life. Crossed her heart. And Felix sounded relieved, to not have to worry about that for once. To know she was safe.

But Paul isn't Vic and she hates herself for the comparison. He's a dick, a cheating bastard, but he couldn't even come halfway to where Vic left her the first time – the bruises, and the record, and Mrs. S losing even more trust in her. As if she chose that. No, Paul isn't anything like Vic.

He's just another thing for Sarah to regret, this one with the sad face of a girl who didn't deserve it. And Sarah doesn't know how to swallow that away.

She doesn't even finish her second drink tonight; nearly everyone else is at least tipsy, a few (Krystal, Rudy) drunk despite it being the first campfire of the summer. There's something about sitting on the slightly damp log without seeing Beth's face through the fire that has her stomach churning and when half the group leaves and Paul's still there she's glad she's sober.

Delphine and Cosima have disappeared into the forest by the time he finally makes his way over, her half of the campfire disappointingly empty.

"Look," he says, sitting down beside her, a surprising space between them.

He doesn't add anything for a while though, just staring out at the fire like maybe the words are burning before him; ash and char where everyone's been tossing newspaper, all wanting to feel powerful enough to make something catch.

Sometimes it's nice being with him. She doesn't admit it when she thinks about the rest of it, but in the quiet moments, in the moments without Beth or his hands on her or anything outside of it, he isn't the antagonist she's made him up to be in her mind. He's just a guy trying to connect with someone who might actually look back at him.

"You didn't have to do anything if you didn't want to," he says after a long while.

They're the only two on this half of the fire. She can hear Krystal laughing somewhere but can't see through the smoke or growing flame.

She picks at a loose thread on her black cutoffs, hoping it all just unravels. "I know," she says. Her voice is hoarse.

She blames it on the smoke.

He exhales, then takes a long sip of beer, and then his eyes are on her in a way she isn't used to.

"I still- I still love her," he says. He stops looking at her.

She glances over and he's suddenly just a boy – small and tired, the fire's reflection making his eyes resemble liquid gold. If she's supposed to feel sorry for him she won't, but he still seems so young.

"Yeah, well, funny way of showing it," she tells him.

Her pulse is quickening, either the alcohol hitting her or a combination of sitting near Paul with a giant fire in front of them that she could easily toss him into. She's angry again and she hates that it makes her feel like crying.

He doesn't say anything when she stands up, tossing the blanket over her shoulder with a waft of rum and Delphine's soft perfume. She could leave him at the fire for someone else to throw in. Let Alison know he's hers for the taking (and really, why Alison hasn't come after him yet is a mystery). (Or maybe it isn't but Sarah won't be the one to say it.) Just disappear and let this be the end of it, but for some reason she turns back to him.

"You know," she says, hating the gentle way he looks at her, "Beth didn't ask for any of this. And with whatever she's going through, I don't know why you'd want to make it worse."

It's enough to make the churning of her stomach subside a little, enough to walk away.

She spies him still sitting on the log as she says goodbye to an affectionate Krystal, who pulls her down for a hug and sloppy kiss on the corner of the mouth, thanking her for coming out like this is one of Krystal's no-doubt blowout parties back home. If Paul wants her sympathy he can pry it from her cold, dead hands. He may not be like Vic in most senses, but he still knows how to hurt someone he's supposed to love.

/

It's nearly too late for Rachel to get in two full sleep cycles before the morning bugle goes but she sits at the edge of the forest anyway, close enough to see the doors to the cabin should anything happen but still able to smoke in privacy.

It's arguably her worst habit, she knows. This includes an ant farm that's now a graveyard and thinking about her mother.

At its heart it's the contrast between the dirty habit and the cold, clean exterior she maintains that makes it so enjoyable, knowing that should anyone catch a glimpse of her with a cigarette between her poised fingers they would be taken aback at someone like her doing such a disgusting thing.

She'd used it as a reason why she shouldn't apply for this job when her father was first insisting, thinking at the very least he'd be horrified to know his precious daughter was a smoker and have to confront that, but he'd had words with the director that a good chunk of the staff each year were smokers as well and it was overlooked as long as the children weren't aware. Of course. Men are so willing to overlook anything they don't want to deal with.

She's rewarding herself tonight for finally lining the drawers of her dresser, wax paper stolen from the mess hall probably around the same time Sarah Manning was vomiting in some bush. Rachel's drawers are pristine and she has to congratulate herself.

The smoke tugs on her lungs a little, it being a few days since her last cigarette and the final curls of humidity still somehow clinging in the hazy air. She inhales deeper the next time to force the feeling.

It isn't entirely preferable, sitting on what is either a large rock or a small boulder close enough to trees to no doubt be in range of dropping spiders. But the alternative is leave her children (and Sarah's, despite her refusal to take responsibility) for her own personal pleasure and wander down to the lake to smoke and she will not shirk her responsibilities like that. Unlike a certain someone who still isn't back yet.

Sitting around a campfire with people she can't stand doesn't sound at all appealing and she still can't see why Sarah would willingly put herself in that position, with what they're saying about her in regards to Paul and Beth. She wonders momentarily if Beth would have come to that sort of event but decides against it, choosing to believe Beth is above it or at the very least tired of it. No, it would just be Paul and Sarah, most likely snuggling on some log while everyone around them talks. And then come morning Sarah would act all offended that she's being blamed for her own actions, as if she's the innocent party in this. Ridiculous.

Rachel's smoked more than half of her cigarette before she realizes and grips the stone beneath her to try and ground her thoughts.

As she does so she becomes aware of the sound of something approaching, soft and creeping as if trying not to be heard. There's a dim beam of light cutting through the trees and as Rachel rises to dispose of her cigarette in some non-fire starting way she catches sight of Sarah herself, cheeks pink, trudging through the forest.

"What on earth-" Rachel lets slip just as Sarah bites out a "bloody hell, Rachel smokes."

"This is not something to be shared," Rachel snaps as she stubs the cigarette out on the rock.

She drops the butt onto the forest floor, realizing this is essentially littering before remembering she doesn't care what Sarah thinks and hiding the thing under some decomposing leaves. Sarah watches the action with almost glassy eyes, no doubt from the alcohol she's wearing as perfume. Rum. Disgusting.

"That's contraband," Sarah teases, stepping closer. "One word to the director-"

Rachel goes to step back, away from the smoky rum stench of Sarah's clothes and tangled hair, and comes up against the rock. Trapped. "The director's aware," she says, trying to maintain an even voice.

Sarah's eyebrows raise, a smile playing on her lips. "But if the kids found out..."

Rachel doesn't seem to know how to use her hands as Sarah steps forward and takes the pack of cigarettes from her, sliding them into her back pocket in a movement that shouldn't be so mesmerizing. If it were anyone else Rachel would already have a sharp retort on her tongue but instead she find herself looking directly at Sarah, trying not to want to tell her she has ash in her hair. Trying not to want to take it out herself.

"Those are mine," she says weakly instead. Stupid. Stupid, stupid.

Is she suddenly a child?

"I think I'll keep them," Sarah says and pats her back pocket. Rachel blinks and looks off towards a dark clump of trees. "I've always thought I'd look hot smoking. What do you think, Rachel?"

That clearly isn't her only pack so she doesn't know why she's panicking like this, her chest constricting in an awfully embarrassing way. It's as if she's in primary school again sitting in a mud puddle with all the children laughing. _I don't like to be pushed_ , she'd told the boy. Stupid.

Sarah's a step closer, the unmistakable scent of champagne on her breath. "You know this shit causes tongue cancer, right?"

"I'm not an idiot," Rachel manages to get out rather dryly.

Sarah nods, looks down at her lips. Fingers the cigarettes through her shorts again.

"Well," she says. "It'd just be a shame if they cut it out."

 _Because I wouldn't be able to verbally combat you anymore?_ Rachel wants to ask, chest still tight and wanting this to be what Sarah means.

But Sarah teeters back on her heels and then is heading towards the cabin with a blanket Rachel doesn't recognize suddenly draped over her shoulders like a cape and there isn't time for anything other than Rachel to smooth down the jacket she's wearing over her pyjama top to protect it from the smoke. Windbreakers crease more than anything. She needs all the folds to disappear before she too can disappear into her cabin.

She stands out there for an extra ten minutes, running her fingers down the unbearable fabric until it feels like enough. And then she prays a tipsy Sarah Manning means no more snoring, for once, so she'll finally be able to sleep without having to think about her.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I've given up on trying to format this, sorry. no idea why ff picked now to crap out on me.**  
 **this chapter's dedicated to plutobat for lending me her copy of The Myth of Sisyphus and for generally being a bro about listening to me go on about these characters. also for getting what it's like to be stuck around kids all day.**

 **Sarah catches some child germ, Rachel reads Camus.**

/

Sarah didn't manage to drag her campers to the morning flag raising once last summer, and in spite (or because?) of the conviction that a hangover is coming for her she's decided today will be the day. She isn't even sure a hangover can come from two drinks but something about her body just feels _off_ , upon waking up, her tongue thick in her mouth, and each burst of noise from her kids sends her body reeling.

Half of them weren't even aware there was a flag raising to begin with, and she wonders if she should thank Angela from last year for that. She certainly has a few campers who seem excited by the prospect of singing around a flagpole before the consumption of coffee.

The majority of her kids, like Sarah, seem greatly disturbed by having to be this awake at six-twenty in the morning. Raya keeps rubbing her palms over her face and hasn't even put on pants, sitting on her bottom bunk like a zombie. And Quinn's been in the shower so long Sarah's half worried she fell back asleep in there.

It isn't as if they aren't normally waking up around this point, Sarah knowing they'll sure as hell need at least half an hour to get ready for breakfast, but they've been up since the first bugle that Sarah's convinced only exists for kitchen staff and a select few who seem impervious to exhaustion (Alison) and it turns out an extra half hour doesn't really give them much more time with how long it's taking them all to fully wake up. She really doesn't envy their parents when they're getting them up for school, witnessing this mess.

Sarah's not doing much better, still in pyjama pants that she's tempted to wear all day and not even having the energy to brush her hair. Every so often Madeleine glances over to where she's propped up against the doorframe and gives her a concerned smile, signifying that Sarah does indeed look as shitty as she feels. Maybe she's getting a bit too old for these campfires. Or it's some punishment for letting Paul sit next to her that long.

She still hasn't had time to process it, given that as soon as she stumbled back to the cabin she ran into fucking Rachel. _Smoking_. Which- she should definitely think of a better spot to hide the cigarettes, with how comfortable these girls seem to be waltzing into her room. Quinn especially.

She can just see herself getting kicked out of camp for letting an eleven year-old light up. God, would Mrs. S love that.

As if called by the thought Quinn comes prancing back into the room in a towel, her hair dripping all over the place and somehow even more wild than it is dry. She gives Sarah a smirk with clear intentions but Sarah just blinks back, too tired to even think of what it could be for. Yelling at her last night for taking Daniela's training bra? Saying good morning?

"Ten minutes," she says to the group instead of dwelling on it. Quinn will probably let her know soon enough.

It's technically fifteen minutes until they're supposed to be at the flagpole, but she figures they might actually make it if they think they've wasted this much time. Sophia squeals and dives back into her bag for god knows what and Quinn drops her towel in the middle of the room, apparently needing to be completely naked as she finds something to wear. Sarah just shakes her head and turns back into her room.

At least three of her kids, Afsheen, Zohal, and Ava, are ready to go, sitting on the two bottom bunks in the corner. And Madeleine seems nearly ready, her panic mostly directed at the group. Not too terrible.

It's a little bit quieter in Sarah's tiny room, the cries of _this is such bull_ (Quinn) and _if you don't hurry it up I'm going to smack you_ (Madeleine) slightly muted by the wooden walls. She sinks onto her bed and just breathes for a second, pulling her hair back, letting her eyes fall shut.

The flag raising's a good idea. If other groups can do it, there's no reason they can't as well. She's pretty sure Delphine and her six year-olds haven't missed a single one, and those kids move at a glacial pace. It'd seem like a better idea if Sarah didn't feel two seconds away from vomiting every time she moves, but this is what she gets for letting Cosima talk her into things, even though she's never come away from a staff social without some sort of regret.

(Paul, mostly. A little bit of vodka, one terrible Jäger incident, a game of Truth or Dare that ended in a near-concussion. In a list she wonders why she goes at all.)

Maybe Alison has the right idea, staying back to "ensure _someone_ is there for the children." Not that the majority of them would willingly come to her in an emergency, but still, when Sarah leaves her girls sleeping it does make her feel a little better knowing Alison's awake on her cabin porch, waiting for trouble. She's probably the only counselor that adheres to the job description, Sarah'll give her that. As for the rest of it...

Well. At least there's someone in Beth's court. Sarah can't say she blames her for caring, even if it is as aggressively as she does.

"You said ten minutes," Madeleine says as she pops her head into Sarah's room.

Sarah rubs her cheeks and tries to look awake. "Yeah?"

Madeleine frowns, her expression that of a middle-aged mother. Scarily close to Mrs. S, actually. "Well it's been twelve," she says. "I thought you might want to know, in case you actually wanted to get there."

"Shi- uh, yeah, thanks," Sarah mutters, heaving herself off her bed, herding Madeleine back out into the cabin. "Yeah, all right, everybody at the door in thirty seconds or we're staying after breakfast to help the kitchen staff clean!"

Ava and the cousins are at the door before Sarah finishes talking, eager to get going, and Sameera and Madeleine line up with relief, but the rest of the girls share horrified looks as they rush to finish ponytails (or in Quinn's case put on a shirt) and generally get their shit together. Sarah frowns at the clock like she's actually counting.

"It's all grease," Madeleine's saying from her spot by the door. "The whole kitchen, _grease_. I am not-"

"Okay, chill," Quinn snaps as she rushes over. Raya and Sophia stumble after her, both bleary-eyed and grimacing.

"Naomi, Daniela," Sarah warns the remaining two girls.

Daniela looks up in a panic, bobby pins in her mouth as she tries to finish her bun. Naomi rolls her eyes but drops the hair straightener, yanking the plug out like it's some great effort, clearly as much a morning person as Sarah is.

And shit, she's still in her pyjama pants. Oh well. It's not like there's anyone to impress here, and after catching Rachel smoking last night the girl can't really say anything against her.

"Okay let's _go_ ," Madeleine urges as the last two girls get in line.

Sarah takes one last look at the utter chaos of clothes and towels left strewn about (they'll clearly need to come back to this before bunk inspections) and herds them out the door. Only five minutes behind schedule, which, in Sarah's books, is her biggest accomplishment all year.

/

They make it before the flag actually goes up, joining the eight and nine year-old boys, Delphine's six year-olds, and Alison's little robots. Somehow in Alison's hands the eight year-olds are always obedient. It'd be impressive if it wasn't so scary.

Sarah doesn't know why she expected Rachel to be here, other than the quiet in her half of the cabin while Sarah was getting her girls ready. It isn't as if Rachel's been a model counselor this far and a flag raising doesn't really seem like her deal, but still, standing in a crappy semi-circle with the other campers Sarah can't help finding Rachel's absence noticeable. Maybe it's that everything last night still feels so unfinished.

She's thought about just talking with her, spending way too long last night when she should've been sleeping mulling it over, but it isn't as if there's anything _to_ talk about – not when she actually gets down to it. Sure, she could give her back her cigarettes. But that'd be admitting a sort of defeat she isn't ready to give. And maybe Rachel isn't even expecting her to; she did let go of the pack with ease.

Maybe she wanted to be caught, then. Wanted someone to find her smoking in the woods. Sarah wouldn't put it past her.

If there's one thing Sarah understands it's the need for your own shittiness to be recognized. Not necessarily called out, but just... seen. And it might be totally different for Rachel, different intentions or different desires, but there was still a look in her eyes when Sarah approached that she hasn't been able to shake – this soft, unguarded _need_. So Sarah left. Went back to her cabin, crept through the quiet bunks, pulled her covers up to her chin in the dark to try and forget it. She didn't even realize Rachel's cigarettes were still in her pocket until she tried to roll over.

"You're not exactly the type I'd expect to run into here," Delphine says to her as the kids are singing, suddenly beside her in a way that would be startling if Sarah had any energy to care.

She lifts her shoulders, grateful for the overcast sky. "You know, thought I'd give it a go or something. For the kids."

Delphine raises an eyebrow and glances at Sarah's half-miserable group but nods.

"Did something happen last night, after we left?" she asks.

Fucking Paul, Sarah almost says, but stops herself. That's not really it at all anyway. "Nah," she says. "Krystal got drunk, I headed back. I- uh, I'm not feeling too hot this morning, though."

She doesn't know why she was about to tell her about Rachel. She doesn't know why she stopped herself either.

Delphine feels her forehead with the back of her hand, frowning in concern and then smoothing back her messy hair. "You're a little warm, maybe a bug?"

"Yeah, I kinda thought it was a hangover, but-" _but I didn't even drink that much_. Yeah, a bug would definitely make sense. Her stomach rolls and she brings a hand to her lips to quell the nausea. These kids _are_ walking germ factories.

"Maybe you should see the nurse later," Delphine suggests, glancing back at her kids as the song ends.

They're about half the size of everyone else here but were singing just as loud, equally off-key, and there's a definite perk to working with the little kids. Literally everything they do is ten times cuter.

The director's grinning and thanking everyone for joining him this morning, as if this is some privilege to stand out with the morning dew and watch a flag be pulled up a pole, and within seconds Alison has her girls lined up with partners and ready to head back to their cabin before breakfast. Delphine gives Sarah's shoulder a soft squeeze before heading back to her sixes and Sarah finds herself staring blankly at her own girls before Quinn's yanking on her arm.

"Can we go back to sleep now?" she asks, dragging Sarah so they're facing the direction of the cabins. "We have like, fifteen minutes until breakfast, right?"

Alison's already halfway down the path with her girls and Seth and Rudy are close behind, the three groups no doubt heading back to clean up for bunk inspections later. Sarah wonders if dust even exists in Alison's cabin.

"God, I wish," Sarah says to Quinn. And then to her girls, "No, we'd better go back and clean. Wouldn't want demerit points before the first week's even over."

"I want that friggin' trophy," Madeleine mutters as she tugs Raya and Zohal into the start of a line.

Sarah snorts. "Well good luck with Alison's group still alive."

She feels bad for a second, realizing Alison didn't even give her a dirty look this morning and seemed almost, briefly, impressed that Sarah managed to show up. But it passes as she remembers Alison has never lost the camp-wide competition and also never lets anyone forget. It isn't as if she has much in the way of actual competition, with no one else really willing to volunteer for extra crap just for points. And yet her victory dance is still insulting.

Sameera thinks about it for a second, digging her heel into the dirt. "Well, what if we cleaned the mess hall?"

Sarah has never seen a dirtier look than the one Madeleine shoots her. She tries to conceal her laugh as a cough but ends up just turning away, trying hard not to catch Quinn's eye. It takes her a good moment before she can face her group again and even then Madeleine's silent outrage has her suppressing a giggle.

Delphine waves at them as she passes with the six year-olds, who all stare up in awe at the older girls and seem even tinier in a line behind Delphine. "Don't forget to check in with the nurse later," Delphine calls out.

Quinn immediately drops Sarah's arm. "You're _sick_?"

"Oh good god," Madeleine says as she takes a giant step back.

Sarah shuts her eyes, suddenly realizing that if she is sick, it probably won't be long before the entire cabin gets it. And there is nothing she wants less than to be near any of these whiney little buggers when they're fighting something. As soon as she drops them off at the mess hall, she's getting herself a surgical mask and as many Lysol wipes as she can find.

/

It's definitely something. Those are the nurse's words after reading the thermometer, mentioning how stuff always passes around camps. Rest and fluids, she advises Sarah, but she does give her a surgical mask after laughing, and despite the waves of dizziness that keep coming Sarah heads back to the mess hall to at least put _something_ in her stomach. Coffee, probably. But at least it'll do its job.

About a third of the room stares at her as she walks in, no doubt at the mask and pyjama pants. She can see Delphine saying something to a stunned Cosima, likely explaining, and Paul looks like he wants to come over but thankfully stays where he is.

"We made a spot for you by yourself," Quinn says when Sarah gets to their table, pointing at the empty no man's land between her group and Rachel's where napkins and condiments are stored.

By 'made' she means shoved a napkin dispenser aside, but it seems to be far enough away from the kids that they're okay with her sitting down, so she doesn't really mind. Getting to sit at all is a relief from the feeling that she's floating upside-down. She considers resting her head on the table for at least a little bit, but it's one of those humid days where the varnish on the wood has regained its tackiness and she'd rather not have to peel her face off the surface. Her elbows sticking is bad enough.

Madeleine nudges a coffee down the table until it rests close enough for Sarah to grab, an act of thoughtfulness that has a lump growing in her throat.

"God, thank-you," she says, trying to keep her eyes from tearing up.

Madeleine makes a sort of panicked face at the emotion in her voice and says, "uh, Delphine suggested it. It wasn't my idea."

"Still," Sarah says. "I appreciate it."

The coffee's lukewarm, but it's terrible on the best of days so a temperature change isn't going to ruin it.

Quinn crinkles her nose from where she sits, the closest to Sarah but far enough away to signify she doesn't want her germs. "Coffee's disgusting. I don't know why you love it so much."

"Adults need it," Naomi says in a bored tone, picking at her eggs. "It's like a life source for them, or something. Or at least that's what my dad says."

Quinn laughs. "Sarah's not an adult."

"Yes she is," Ava argues, rising from her seat a little. Afsheen pulls her back down. "She's a lot older than _you_."

Sarah feebly raises her head to interject, but Quinn's already talking before she can find the energy to put words together. She might as well just go to sleep right here with how much she's contributing to the morning.

"Okay, but adults have, like, responsibilities and stuff. And no offence," Quinn adds, looking pointedly at Sarah's pyjamas, "but they wear actual clothes."

Sarah can hear Rachel's cold chuckle from the other end of the table. Any other day she'd invite her to share but the thought of turning her head in any direction has her wanting to lie down. Probably not a good sign for their upcoming soccer session. Maybe she can sneak in a quick nap on the bleachers.

She rests the side of her face against the cool wood of the table before she has time to think about the varnish, just needing to chill for a second, hoping she can somehow inhale the caffeine from her coffee because there's no way she's lifting her head or mask to drink.

"Sarah..."

Her eyes aren't shut, but all she can see is the bottom corner of a ketchup bottle. She recognizes Naomi's voice though and makes a noise to signify she heard her.

"Uh, Paul's here," Naomi says, just as Sarah catches on to someone standing beside her.

With great effort she unsticks her face from the table and sits upright again. The smirk she's expecting from Paul turns out to be a look of concern, and she has to hope Alison's not watching this interaction from her table with a butter knife in her hand. It would be just like her to take some great personal offense at Paul caring. (Especially, Sarah considers, when Paul doesn't seem to care that Beth's been in a fog for well over a year.)

"Yeah, what," she mutters.

His eyes are fixed on the surgical mask and his usual cockiness is nonexistent, which is almost more unsettling than feeling all her girls watching this interaction with great interest. If they're all focused on her then Rachel probably is as well, somehow always in tune with what's happening at Sarah's half of the table, staring every time Sarah's thought to look over like she just _knows_.

Paul clears his throat. "I just thought, seeing as you're, uh, not feeling too hot, you might want to leave your girls with me this morning so you could try to sleep it off. We're doing some art and then soccer, so with the specialists the ratio isn't... you know..."

She'd rather not even leave her trash with him, but the sheer exhaustion dragging down her body is enough for her to accept. "If you lose a single kid I'll cut you," she warns, grudgingly giving him a grateful smile.

"I'm doing a drama thing with Alison this afternoon. A flesh wound sounds like a good enough reason to ditch, don't you think?" He gives her that stupid shining smile of his, the one she hates to admit sucked her in last year when she didn't know any better.

"Well in that case feel free to lose Quinn," she says, snorting at Quinn's indignant _hey_.

Paul laughs and takes a good look at her group as if trying to predict what kind of mistake he's just made. Naomi's smiling, at least. No doubt eager to see her brother. The rest of them seem as trustful of Paul as Sarah usually is, and maybe she's a terrible counselor for abandoning them to take a nap but she'd like to think this is what Delphine would choose in this situation as well and Delphine doesn't seem to do anything wrong.

"Just be good to them," she tells him.

He promises, but when she's finally back in her bed with the flimsy curtain drawn across her window she has to try really hard to believe she made the right choice. At least if anything goes wrong she can blame it on the fever.

/

Her kids bounce back into the cabin just before lunch, Quinn kicking in the door then holding her t-shirt over her face to come check on Sarah. The rest of the kids hover behind her just outside the doorway for a minute and then disperse, a few of them with some god-awful popsicle stick craft that could either be a bird house or an exercise in glue. It makes Sarah feel a little better that the art specialist doesn't seem to be putting that much effort into this year either.

"So are you still hella contagious?" Quinn asks as she creeps closer.

She pauses to examine a photo Sarah has propped up on the one tiny shelf, of her and Felix in matching Halloween costumes. It was the last year she was able to trick-or-treat and their first year in Canada and he'd made her go as a bloody Ninja Turtle, not even the good one, and the whole night adults asked where the rest of their group was. _Just us¸_ she said at every house. _Just the two of us_.

"Probably," Sarah says, sitting upright and trying to smooth down what she imagines to be Medusa-levels of hair. "But I'm feeling a bit better. Is Paul still here?"

Quinn's frowning, still staring at the photo. "No, Rachel brought us back. Is this you?"

Sarah resists the urge to ask who else it could be, given that this is her room and she's not in the habit of collecting other people's childhood photos, and makes a small noise of confirmation, trying not to wonder if Rachel volunteered or if Paul just assumed she would and she had no way out. Did she say anything to the girls? Did Quinn give her a hard time?

"How old were you?" Quinn asks. She's dropped the t-shirt from her face but is still keeping her distance like Sarah could cough and doom her at any second.

"Twelve," Sarah says. "That's my brother, my foster brother."

She throws off her blanket and sets about finding an actual pair of shorts to wear, not wanting another repeat of this morning's mess hall entrance when she brings the girls for lunch. It's tempting to grab the one pair of sweats she brought and lounge for the rest of the day but the humidity has definitely made itself known and she'd rather not sit in a pile of her own sweat.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Quinn says as she moves towards the dresser, catching sight of a photo booth strip tucked into the mirror. It's Sarah and Felix and a couple pairs of retro sunglasses and Quinn takes her time, examining each photo like they might hold some sort of secret. "So do you guys not have parents?"

Sarah freezes in the middle of trying to pull a pair of denim cutoffs out of her suitcase, frowning at the back of Quinn's head. "Well, we have a foster mum, Mrs. S. But before that it was... a lot of bouncing around homes. She was the first one to want either of us, really."

There's a beat and then Quinn turns around, her face a soft expression Sarah hasn't seen before. She seems to forget about Sarah's contagion for a minute as she steps towards the bed, taking a seat next to Sarah, curling her hands in the tangle of sheets.

"So you were pretty lonely, then?" Quinn asks in a quiet voice.

Sarah's grip relaxes on the cutoffs and they fall back against the opening of the suitcase, caught in the zipper. "Yeah, you know, I was. And- angry, too. For a long time."

Quinn nods, eyes fixed on her lap. Sarah wishes she had something to say that wouldn't send this conversation into an after-school special and probably ruin any chance she had at building Quinn's trust, knowing how quickly this openness is likely to go. Quinn's a lot like a wild animal that way, all teeth and snarl the moment she senses someone might be getting too close. Sarah used to be the same. (Maybe, secretly, still is.)

"Are you still angry?" Quinn asks after a pause, collecting herself enough to start picking at the peeling veneer of the bedpost.

Sarah can almost hear Mrs. S laughing at the question, telling the kid Sarah's made sure to hold onto her anger or something equally offensive and semi-true. Anything to remind Sarah she doesn't want to give up her angry punk kid gimmick because it's too easy to get what she wants that way. Too easy to excuse her own shitty behavior.

Sarah would like to think she's grown up a little in the past two years, leaving at least some of that behind, but who knows. She still slept with Paul. She still can't apologize for it. There's a whole load of shit she'd rather write off as side effects of a troubled childhood.

"Sometimes I am," she tells Quinn. "And I do stupid stuff because of it. But I'm trying to be better."

She catches a glimpse of Naomi in the doorway out of the corner of her eye, but when she turns Naomi's gone and Quinn's heading back to the dresser to continue her snooping almost as if Sarah said nothing at all.

"Is this old lady cream?" Quinn asks, holding up a bottle of moisturizer.

Sarah smiles and rolls her eyes and unzips her suitcase wide enough to fully free her pair of shorts. "If it is, does that mean I'm an adult now?"

Quinn helps herself to the moisturizer, giving it a sniff before rubbing it into her hands. It's lavender and Quinn crinkles her nose.

"No," she says with a grimace. "Just that you have bad taste."

Sarah laughs and heaves herself off the bed, shorts in hand, kicking Quinn out of her room so she can change before the lunch gong sounds. It isn't like they need the full hour to eat but Sarah would at least like to get them there before Cosima, who's essentially the camp late bell at this point with how consistent she is.

Her girls are, thankfully, a little more agreeable than they were this morning, eager to share with her their stories of having to deal with the boys as she walks them over to the mess hall. It's a mix of disgust and veiled interest that makes Sarah glad to be done puberty and she makes a mental note to thank Paul for doing this with him being the one who had to oversee it all. Nothing worse than kids trying to handle their crushes.

They slide into the lunch line just before Cosima's group. As Sarah grabs a tray she pretends she doesn't see Quinn smelling her hands again, a tiny smile on her lips.

/

Rachel heard about Sarah's illness at breakfast, when her campers filtered in without her and filled the other end of the table with incessant chatter about germs. Sarah joined them soon after in sleepwear and a surgical mask and despite the comical getup Rachel didn't think of the implications of sitting so close to Patient Zero until later, during some improv games in the rec hall when one of her children started to cough.

She wasn't exactly thrilled to lead Sarah's group back to the cabins with any one of them now a carrier but also didn't fully feel comfortable letting Paul do it, even if Sarah gave him permission, considering his behavioral track record. And it is fully believable that Sarah's illness might be to blame for her lapse in judgment as well.

Rachel's still displeased with her for last night, but the short conversation in which she informed Paul she'd be returning the kids to their cabin justified her decision. The glint in his eyes and the hand he let rest on her arm before she gave him a pointed look were enough for her to understand how someone as needy as Sarah could find herself fawning after him. Of course it did absolutely nothing for Rachel, but she would like to consider herself a bit more evolved than the likes of Sarah. She's sure Paul didn't have to work hard to win her over.

Sarah's children seemed eager to share with her the details of Sarah being sick as if this was the only thing to happen to them at camp thus far, one of them voicing Rachel's concerns that this could be widespread if they aren't careful, and it isn't a fully unpleasant walk. Her girls being slightly older than Rachel's means they were of interest to Rachel's campers and in wanting to impress them their behavior was noticeably improved.

If it weren't for Sarah being their counselor Rachel would consider merging the groups more often.

She made her girls wash their hands as soon as she left the eleven year-olds at their door, not wanting to risk anything. Spending the summer passing whatever bug Sarah has between them is not Rachel's idea of a good time even if it would give her an excuse to keep her distance from the kids.

(There was a momentary consideration to check in on Sarah but it was quashed by the reminder that Sarah still has her cigarettes. That she took them in the first place. And anyway, Rachel is not the type to care about anyone else's wellbeing, regardless of their proximity or inability to take care of themselves.)

She sees Sarah at lunch, the mask still on her face but pyjamas gone and some semblance of order returning to her group. Rachel wasn't worried but it is nice to see a bit of color in Sarah's cheeks again.

Her own children are as animated as ever today, making it less likely that any of them are battling whatever Sarah has, and for once Rachel doesn't find herself minding their lively conversations over the table. She'd been considering assigning spots for mealtime to cut down on the talking but at the very least they're distracted enough to forget their mission to interrogate Rachel for personal details about her life.

 _Do you have any pets at home? What's your favorite color? Do you have a boyfriend?_

One of them (Sahar) was at least asking because she wanted to make Rachel a friendship bracelet, which Rachel politely declined. But it seemed to set them off in their questioning and Rachel only has so many vague and impersonal answers to give.

 _My father owns birds. Silver. Aren't you too young to be concerning yourself with matters like that?_

"No, that's definitely not true," Clementine's saying now, about whatever no doubt idiotic thing Olivia just said. It's mostly been background noise as Rachel attempts to eat.

Clementine looks to her for confirmation and she drops her spoon back into her soup as she tries not to sigh. Their belief that she pays attention to their conversations is turning out to be exhausting.

"I'm afraid I wasn't listening," Rachel says, choosing to ignore the expression that passes over Clementine's face.

It really isn't her problem if the child's parents didn't prepare her for the world. If she'd like people to pay attention, she needs to have something interesting to say. And, realistically, a name change. Rachel can't imagine anyone taking a woman named after a fruit seriously.

"Eels," Olivia explains. She's poking at her soup with the crust of her grilled cheese as if there might be some lurking in the broth.

Rachel blinks. "I'm still not sure what the question is."

"If there's eels in the lake," Sierra says. "Olivia said her brother said there are eels in the lake in the deep part and if you flip your canoe out there they'll electrocute you."

A few of the other girls share Sierra's anxious expression, no doubt concerned about their canoeing session later this afternoon. Rachel's tempted to perpetuate the rumor to not have to deal with them all flipping themselves on purpose. She doesn't know what it is about near-drowning experiences that kids seem to love so much but as soon as it requires her assistance it becomes her problem. And she really isn't about to dive into murky waters to save children who should know better.

"Eels definitely only live in the ocean," Clementine argues, Raniyah nodding with her.

Rachel sighs and rubs a finger under her eye, looking forward to quiet hour after this. "Eels can live in freshwater as well, which includes lakes." At the sight of her girls' faces she adds, "but I'm certain they don't live in _this_ lake. It's more of a glorified pond if we'd like to get into specifics anyway."

She doesn't mention that they aren't likely to encounter electric eels anywhere outside a zoo, not wanting to prolong this conversation. Besides, a small amount of fear is good for children. It keeps them alert.

"I'm still not gonna dangle my toes in the water," Sahar says seriously, and Rachel gives her a fond smile.

"That's a good idea," she says, "considering the size of the fish that live out there."

It sends a decent round of alarm across her table and she lets them speculate on what kind of horrors lurk in the deep as she sets about finishing this sorry excuse of a soup. It might have been better with grilled cheese, but she'd rather not put that much grease in her stomach before an afternoon of water sports. The last thing she needs is to join Sarah in her sickness.

Sarah's currently involved in some sort of tiresome conversation with her kids, looking about as thrilled to be eating as Rachel is, the mask pushed up over her nose to free her chapped lips. Catching herself staring, Rachel drops her gaze into her soup. No telling what Sarah might assume if she saw that.

Nothing good, especially paired with the way she came at Rachel last night. Rachel's sure it was a combination of rum and the start of her illness but she still can't shake the image of Sarah advancing, cheeks flushed, that ash trapped in her mess of hair. The scent of the campfire combined with alcohol was so strong that Rachel swears she can still smell it, even here in the mess hall through all this grease and garlic. She hates that it's going to make her think of Sarah from now on. Hates that Sarah's even a thought in her head.

"Can we play outside after lunch?" Marlow asks her, auburn hair falling out of the braid that Rachel regrettably had to help her with this morning.

Rachel frowns. "And do what?"

She pictures them all sitting in the sun at the picnic table, voices much too loud for quiet hour as they do exactly as they are now but without food to occupy them. It sounds like a recipe for boredom. Rachel's never had time for that.

"We're playing a game in the trees," she says, looking over to the Isabellas and Sahar. "We're all orphans in this little house and we have to gather our own food and there's this witch-"

"That's you," Olivia interrupts, and of course it is.

Rachel glances upwards at the beams for a moment and exhales.

Sahar looks at her nervously, awaiting a reaction that she seems to think will be anger. If it were any other child Rachel would follow through but she finds herself oddly fond of Sahar in an almost embarrassing way. She's nothing like Rachel was as a child but there's still something impressive about her, the way she carries herself with ease.

"Well it is a lovely day," Rachel says finally. "We might as well enjoy it outside."

A few of the girls let out a little cheer and Marlow thanks her with a big grin but Rachel focuses on Sahar, who reaches out with a small hand and just rests her fingers on Rachel's wrist. Almost as if she's fond of Rachel as well.

/

Rachel realizes her mistake five minutes into quiet hour when Sarah's brood comes tumbling out of their cabin to join them outside. They bring cards and skipping ropes and drawing materials with them, and Sarah folds herself up on the other picnic table with a few children who seem more interested in Sarah than the card game she's attempting to show them.

Rachel has the picnic table to herself, Evie drifting back every five minutes to complain about the heat but not staying long enough for Rachel to yank the hair out of her mouth. With the way their small grassy area is set up Rachel finds herself facing Sarah, the two mirror images of each other – Sarah with an audience, Rachel noticeably alone. It's what she wants; still, watching Sarah's face light up behind the mask she feels a twinge somewhere deep in her chest.

Two of the girls around her Rachel recognizes: Quinn is unforgettable, her hands snaking through Sarah's hair as if she's forgotten she's contagious. The helpful one – Madeleine, she believes – is testing all the markers on a scrap piece of paper. Rachel sees promise in her.

If the circumstances were different (i.e., if Sarah wasn't Sarah) Rachel might consider joining them, taking up whatever card game Sarah seems to be laying out on the table and having something to do other than sit here for the next fifty minutes. She should have brought her book. She intended to, but it's sitting inside on her pristinely-made bed and she's not about to ask Sarah to watch her kids to go get it.

Her kids are mostly in the scattering of trees nearby, anyway. There's a particularly bent tree that seems to be the doorway to the house, which is the underside of an enormous pine tree. The twigs and pinecones in the surrounding area act as provisions and she's already tired of watching the girls scurry around to collect them.

In and out of the trees. In and out of the trees. Moving like insects in the shade, which is, she supposes, why they have any energy at all; they aren't trapped in the full sun because of an error in seating choice.

The front steps to the porch are looking pretty good right now.

"Evie," she calls over, attracting Sarah's attention for a flash. She pretends she doesn't see it but surreptitiously runs a hand down the front of her shirt nonetheless.

Evie for once doesn't have hair in her mouth but bumbles over in that irritating spud-like way of hers and Rachel questions why she picked this one.

"Yeah?" Evie says, leaning her middle into the edge of the picnic table.

Rachel ignores the crass reply, reminding herself she isn't here to teach etiquette. If she was every last child would know how to pick up after themselves and not speak unless spoken to. "Can you fetch something for me?" she asks.

Evie perks up, interested. "Inside?"

"In my room," Rachel says. "There's a book on my bed, I'd like you to bring it to me. Can you do that?"

It's like instructing an eager puppy the way Evie nods, bouncing on her toes. Rachel gives her a tiny wave to send her over and she takes off like Rachel's counting the seconds. She assumes it's less than two minutes but without glancing at her watch she can't say. Still, Evie returns promptly with the book and only frowns at the cover for a second before handing it over.

"What's it about?" she asks.

It's _Camus_ , she nearly snaps.

"Absurdism," she says instead. "Morality."

Evie makes a face as she palms a crack in the table. "I don't know what that means."

"Oh, I'm aware." Rachel presses her lips together.

There's a beat where Evie takes one more strange look at the cover and then she's shrugging and running back off into the trees, reminding Rachel that she's still the witch even if she says she's not playing. "You just have to sit there and be scary," she calls back, and Sarah laughs from her picnic table.

 _She's already mastered that_ , Rachel imagines her saying.

But no, maybe Sarah doesn't see her as something to be feared. The thought clenches tight in her stomach and she opens her book to the dog-eared page to get rid of it.

She gets about half a page in before she finds herself distracted by the soft conversation Sarah's having with her girls, as if trying to keep it at the table. Apparently the girls jumping rope in the grass and practicing their cartwheels don't merit the information.

"He's thirteen," Sarah's saying. "So no, not my twin."

Rachel glances up from the sentence she's still trying to read to see an almost pained expression on Sarah's face, staring hard at the cards in her hand. The game seem to be all but abandoned but Sarah doesn't give.

The girl beside Sarah, another quiet one, with honey-colored hair lighter than her skin, eyes her with what looks to be disappointment. If Rachel remembers correctly this is the girl whose brother is in Paul's group and made sure to mention it as Rachel was walking them back.

"I do have a twin sister though," Sarah says, off the disappointment. It lights up the girl's eyes and Sarah seems to sink deeper into the table. "But she doesn't live with me."

"Why not?" the girl asks.

It seems deeply personal and Rachel nearly tells her off for asking when Sarah clearly doesn't want to share. But then Sarah doesn't even have a response, and Rachel feels like reprimanding her for answering any of their questions to begin with. Children do just fine with their imaginations; no need to hand them anything concrete. Anything that could stain.

"They don't have parents," Quinn says, eager to share that she knows something the other girls don't. Rachel frowns at the back of her head.

Madeleine looks like she might clamp a hand over Quinn's mouth and then whips her head to see if Sarah's upset but Sarah just gives them a little smile, lifting her shoulders as if this is all some humorless joke.

"Why not?" the other girl asks again, sounding more concerned than the first time.

Rachel nearly shuts her book but then realizes she might need something to pretend to do if Sarah happens to glance her way. She has no problem with eavesdropping but getting caught is just shameful.

"I have a foster mum," Sarah says somewhat forcefully. "Felix and I live with her."

"Where does your twin live?" Quinn asks and props herself up on her elbows, very much more interested in this conversation than the cards she'd been attempting to build with.

"Somewhere safe," Sarah says. It sounds wistful through the mask.

She catches Rachel's eye accidentally, but there isn't anything but a sort of dulled resignation in her expression. Something eerily similar to Beth and Rachel quickly drops her gaze to get rid of the thought. Sarah is nothing like Beth. Or, Beth is nothing like Sarah.

The girls are moving on to their next line of interrogation, led by Madeleine to what seems to be every child's curiosity this week – if she has a boyfriend or if she's in love.

Rachel jabs her finger under the sentence she's determined to read thoroughly this time and does her best not to hear Sarah's laugh and _no, no boys in my life anymore_ as she focuses everything on the printed words. One by one. Until she can string them together and they form a line and she still has no idea what they say because Quinn's asking about Paul and Rachel wants to toss her book at the girl's head.

 _Paul_ is not something Sarah would ever let herself love. Rachel knows this with every fiber of her being.

You should know about Beth, she silently reprimands the children. They've been here how long and aren't aware or have forgotten that Paul is supposed to love his girlfriend? But everyone's seen the way he continues to look at Sarah, and Rachel finds her fingernails leaving marks on her palm before she can stop herself.

Of course those two would find each other. Likeminded individuals and Rachel doesn't know why she thought she'd be kind and return Sarah's kids for her. Why she'd bother to keep Paul away when Sarah eagerly handed them over to him in the first place.

"You really look like the witch now," Evie says, suddenly appearing at Rachel's side.

So there is a price to bitterness. No, she scratches the word from her mind. _Bitter_ is for someone who cares about either party. She's _bored_. Bored of the two of them. Bored of Sarah.

"You could come chase us if you want," Evie suggests.

Her hand goes to grab a piece of hair and without thinking Rachel taps it away.

"Or I could simply eat you," she says, and she doesn't even need to pretend to lunge for Evie to run screaming back into the trees, the joy and terror clear on her face.

All her girls watch her from between the branches with the best mix of fear and awe and Rachel considers it a personal victory, to have excelled so well in her role as their summer villain. If they need her to strike them down later she will do so with gusto. Anything but care for them. Anything but let them believe adults will be there when it matters.

"Blue and black," Sarah's saying decisively, over at the once again pleasant table, holding her wrist out for Madeleine to measure with her fingers.

Rachel knows it's for a request to make a bracelet but in her head it just sounds like _bruise_.

/

It was someone's bright idea to have a karaoke night after dinner with a group of children who so desperately need vocal lessons Rachel half expects the large windowpanes to shatter, but for some reason none of them seem to notice and eagerly form group after group to plan out performances. The list of songs available ranges from current radio hits to songs Rachel's parents used to listen to, all typed up in a great yellow binder that passes from group to group, each of them eager to find something they know. It mostly ends up being pop songs and the hell from the latest Disney movie. Rachel regrets not bringing earplugs.

There are a handful of children who are much more interested in bracelet-making than being in front of an audience and this is where Rachel sits, in a group at the back of the room, surrounded by embroidery thread and surprisingly next to Sarah's French friend Delphine in the other uncomfortable plastic chair. It wasn't planned on either of their parts but they're both too polite to move and Rachel's just waiting for her to initiate what will be their first conversation this summer.

She did ask her, the one day of orientation she attended, where to find the director's office, but it was with as little words as possible on both their parts and not at all memorable. Just as Rachel likes it.

Delphine seems to have more of a reason to be here than Rachel, with it mostly being younger kids opting to make bracelets instead of perform. But Rachel sat down first and this is where she hoped to attract the least amount of attention and she's not getting up now. Not when Sarah and Cosima are occupying the only other safe space in the room, in the corner with the filing cabinets, away from Alison and Paul and any children who might ask them to sing.

Sierra seemed to be angling for Rachel to join her and Raniyah up on "stage" (a couple raised platforms shoved together at the front of the hall) while they all walked over but Rachel shot that down as quickly as possible. There is no way in hell she'd ever submit herself to that kind of torture.

"So are you enjoying your time here so far?" Delphine sounds uninterested in her own words, clearly wanting this conversation to happen as much as Rachel.

It was an inevitability with the proximity of their chairs but Rachel still feels like letting her know they don't have to do this; they can sit in silence and suffer through another rendition of _Let It Go_ by children who should be nowhere near a microphone and not be bound by social pleasantries. At the very least they don't have to pretend to care.

"It's been... informative," Rachel says, examining her nails.

Informative of exactly why adults don't willingly subject themselves to children on a daily basis unless they absolutely must. Also why Rachel's parents never took her camping as a child; there is entirely too much dirt and too many insects and her mother wouldn't have lasted one second in the wilderness.

Delphine laughs, almost a quiet scoff. "Sounds like someone who wants to be here," she says.

She's surely already heard everything Sarah and Cosima have to say about Rachel, no doubt had a good laugh about it as well. Rachel doesn't know why she'd want to prolong this conversation if not to garner more material to laugh about later, as she sure they've done with Alison and likely whichever counselor Rachel replaced.

It stings slightly, but Rachel would probably do the same if she had anyone to laugh with.

"Well it wasn't exactly my idea to apply," she tells Delphine, maintaining an even tone.

Delphine nods but doesn't seem surprised. "This is why you aren't here to make friends?"

Rachel's stomach muscles contract. Of course.

There's a slight smile on Delphine's lips that if she weren't annoyed at her own words being tossed back at her like a joke she might admit to finding attractive, knowing that in the category of aesthetically-pleasing counselors Delphine is in the top two. (She won't let herself think about who the other one is. There is a purposely blank spot in her mind for that.)

Delphine is looking at her like she's figured out why Rachel keeps herself so removed from everyone else and while frustrating, Rachel also feels as if it's lacking the usual judgment that comes with it.

"It really isn't my ideal crowd," Rachel says anyway, needing to put out some excuse.

She notices a chip in her nail polish in tandem with Delphine making a small sound in response and when she glances over Delphine has her eyebrow raised as if she sees right through her.

 _Do you have a crowd at all_? she seems to be asking.

Rachel swallows; covers the chipped silver paint with her thumb. _Of course_ , she tries to reply. _Of course there are people who care about me_.

They lose their conversation as one of the younger kids comes at Delphine with a terribly knotted up attempt at a bracelet and tears in her eyes and Delphine immediately sets about making it right, smoothing the child's hair back with a caring hand. Rachel wonders how long it took her to learn to react all soft like that or if she's just one of those strange people who was born knowing.

Like Sarah.

Who currently has Cosima's hand between her own, playing with her fingers as if they're water.

At least when Cosima catches Sarah's bug Rachel will have no reason to be close enough to worry about catching it from her. It's a wonder half the camp isn't sick already with Sarah's inability to isolate herself.

That's something Rachel could teach her; how to detach completely. And maybe then her children wouldn't feel entitled to answers about her mosaic of a family.

Rachel congratulates herself on her own girls not knowing a thing about her. If she can make it through the summer relatively intact, it will be a personal triumph.

/

There's a welcome crispness to the air that night, settling in just as Rachel is putting her girls to bed. All of them, including Isabella W., opt for pyjama pants instead of sleep shorts, and even Rachel considers changing into something slightly warmer than the cargo shorts she's wearing for the half hour of reading she'll do before going to sleep as well.

The nightly schedules aren't as terrible as she'd anticipated before the summer started. The girls seem happy, for the most part, to get to rest after their busy days, and the conversations that continue past lights out only manage to last for ten to fifteen minutes before they're all asleep. Of course she has had the odd child wake up again, a few nightmares that had someone opening her door in the middle of the night. She's grateful she thought to buy camp-appropriate sleepwear instead of bringing what she had at home.

They seem especially tired tonight, after the canoe trip; it was nearly two hours of battling the current and more complaining than she's heard thus far and she admits to considering flipping her own canoe just to not have to paddle anymore. That would have had the added bonus of taking Sierra and Olivia with her and she almost regrets opting to stay dry.

"Rachel, you should tell us a story," Evie requests from her top bunk, lifting her head up so she can look where Rachel's monitoring from the wall by her doorway.

A few other heads pop up as well, Isabella C. and Julisa, and from the bunk under Marlow Sahar nods with a little smile. They're _ten_ ; Rachel can't believe they'd still require such a crutch before bed. But there's a low murmur of interest across the cabin and Rachel frowns.

"I'm afraid I don't have any storybooks with me," she says, ready to disappear into her room at the end of this conversation.

Isabella C. props herself up on her elbows. "That's okay, you can just tell us one of yours."

"Or read from your book," Sahar suggests.

Rachel briefly dissects her childhood into what might be a) appropriate and b) interesting to children and surmises that they might be better off with Camus. No use telling them of forced independence and the preference her father had for his birds. _My Rachel_ , he'd call her, but it still sounded less sweet than his voice for his pets.

"It won't be very interesting," she tells them, but they say it doesn't matter.

She dips into her room to grab her book and returns with a chill snaking its way up her throat, her fingers suddenly sore, remembering very strongly of her father making her read aloud at the bottom of the stairs so he could hear her at the top. _Speak clearly, Rachel. Stand up straight_.

The sea of faces looking at her now aren't her father but she doesn't know how to tell her body.

"I'll read you the myth," she says, thumbing through the pages. "Do you all know what a myth is?"

She recalls being taught about some Greek mythology in the fifth grade a few years after her father started drilling it into her, but the education system might have changed in the past decade or so.

"We learned about Pandora in school," Marlow says.

Raniyah brushes her hair out of her face with a frown and says, "and Hercules, like the Disney movie."

"Well, good," Rachel says, choosing to lean against a dresser instead of stand up straight. Still, she can't shake the habit of holding her book out in front of her, arms bent at the proper angles. Strange how only bits of childhood seem to stick.

"The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight," she begins. A few girls settle into their beds but Sahar remains watching her. "They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor."

She continues to read with a slight warmth in her voice, amused by the way they try to follow along despite a good chunk of the words being entirely new to them.

It feels, she admits to herself, similar to when her father would read to her as a child, knelt by her bed with a mug of tea on her bedside table. He only chose books he felt like reading again, never the picture books that lined her painted shelves. But she always did her best to understand. She'd assumed he treasured those moments as much as she did but over the past handful of years she's come to question it; come to question everything about her own childhood.

Most of the girls are asleep by Camus's discussion of the return down the mountain, missing one of Rachel's favorite lines. _If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious_. She has it underlined in a soft pencil and savors the way it sounds on her tongue.

She's sure she's lost the remaining girls entirely, who watch her with sleepy eyes from their bunks, but it still feels good to read; to speak the words out loud and watch as they tug her girls into their dreams. Surely her father enjoyed this too. Why else would he return night after night?

There is only one child awake by the time Rachel gets to the last paragraph.

She approaches Sahar's bottom bunk fluidly, coming to kneel by the side of her bed. Sahar has sweet creases in her cheek from her pillow and trains her eyes on Rachel's lips.

 _I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain_ , Rachel reads. _One always finds one's burden again._

 _But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He, too, concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world_.

Sahar slips her hand over her sleeping bag to reach out for Rachel's, just knocking their knuckles together softly in a gesture that pulls something in Rachel's chest. She reads the last two lines with a little more purpose, her spine aching.

 _The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart_ , she tells her. _One must imagine Sisyphus happy._

A silence fills the cabin that has Rachel acutely aware of her crouched position on the floor and she wants to stand up but finds herself instead smoothing back Sahar's dark hair. _Do you understand?_ she wants to ask her. But it sounds too much like her father and she leaves it at that.

Smiles, wishes her sweet dreams, stands up to the creaking of her bones. Sahar falls asleep within minutes and Rachel shuts the lights off to leave the main room in darkness.

She retreats to her bedroom after a moment's reflection to continue reading; the book is filled with two different sets of underlines, her father's faded handwriting in the margins, and it lulls her into a dreamlike state of her own for a good while. It's only as the alarm on her phone buzzes quietly beside her (she likes to read for a full half hour, no less) that she realizes there's a voice coming from outside, through the screen door, and finds herself needing to investigate.

The floorboards creak as she tries to tiptoe across the cabin, tightening her robe around her midsection. She's thankful her girls are heavy sleepers but then almost wishes there was someone else awake to act as a witness – because out on the porch steps, hair tangled with moonlight, sits Sarah in her rolled-down black sweatpants.

Rachel presses her fingers against the screen and monitors her breathing, not wanting to alert the girl to her presence despite Sarah being submerged in a phone conversation and not likely to look behind her.

It's a relaxed voice, the one she's using, as if whoever she's talking to knows exactly how to release her stress. Even with the sullen tone she still sounds... happy.

"I don't know, Fe," she's saying. A hand comes up to brush back her hair and then drops down to her side. "I'm just tired of all of it, and there's still-"

Rachel can't hear even the lowest murmuring from the phone so she can't even try to decipher the interruption from its tone. Years of listening to her parents' phone calls doesn't seem to be helping her very much.

"But it's not just Paul," Sarah says and then pauses to listen. "God, no. No, Vic isn't even an issue at this point; don't worry. You know I can hold my own."

There's a history of _something_ here, and Rachel gathers that she must be talking to her brother, who she mentioned earlier this afternoon. The ease with which they communicate has Rachel distantly wishing to share that sort of bond with someone, knowing she's not likely to call her father until the morning he's due to pick her up and none of her younger cousins have even written to her since she moved to Canada.

"No, she doesn't even seem to care," Sarah says, answering some question Rachel wishes to have heard.

 _Who_ doesn't? She can't be talking about Rachel, but her skin pricks all the same, as if eight again and hearing her mother say _she doesn't have a clue_ to a nameless friend while hiding under the stairs. So many pieces of her childhood she has no way to contextualize. Her fingers itch for a cigarette but she can't step out with Sarah already on the porch.

"Just once," Sarah says. "I'm kinda hiding from her. Yeah, Alison. But I don't even know how to-"

Her hand is at her face now, close to her mouth and Rachel imagines her picking at the skin of her lips as she listens.

"Well they don't bloody well make a card for sleeping with someone's boyfriend, do they?" Sarah says rather harshly, then apologizes, then after a pause continues with, "But he's always _there_. Even today, you know, when I went to nap... I could just hear him congratulating himself for having something on me. Kinda half expect him to ask me to- yeah."

Rachel realizes her hand's in a fist, curled up so tight it hurts. As she unclenches her fingers she contemplates sneaking out her window to go find Paul and at the very least throw something at him. A rock, a chair.

It's becoming clearer and clearer to her what role Sarah must have played in all of this last summer – and Beth for that matter, sitting sullenly to the side. Rachel knows about boys who think they deserve whatever they fancy simply for desiring it; she's spent years learning to fend them off but she knows for other girls it isn't so simple. They weren't raised with knives for tongues. They're too afraid to wound.

 _You have it in you to have said no, though_ , Rachel wants to tell Sarah.

But she knows Sarah must have wanted it to happen, at least in the moment it did. And it fills her with anger to think that she'd be so stupid.

She steps back from the door as Sarah rises, ending her phone call, and it's in this instant that she spies her cigarettes tucked into the pocket of Sarah's sweatpants, the plastic catching in the moonlight. _Bitch_.

Sarah doesn't go back to her cabin as Rachel expects but instead takes off down the path and through the trees, no doubt heading towards the lake. The darkness swallows her whole but Rachel finds herself watching the path where she disappeared for a while after; watching and expecting her to turn back at any moment, her own pillar of salt.

You foolish girl, she tells her. You should have known so much better.

/

Sarah lights up a cigarette as she's rounding the path along the edge of the forest to the lake, having watched Vic do it a thousand times, inhaling sharply as the flame catches – startled by the way her lungs scratch.

She hadn't exactly been serious about smoking Rachel's cigarettes when she took them from her but between her immune system shutting down and Paul catching her after karaoke _right in front of Alison_ she decided it might help. It's a great stress reliever, she's heard. She usually goes for orgasms herself but seeing as that's obviously not going to happen at camp she decided to have a go at being Rachel Duncan.

It... tastes like shite. Rachel must not kiss a lot of people if this is what her mouth tastes like.

She stumbles in the sand half at the intrusive thought and half at the figure sitting on the boathouse dock, looking out across the moonlit water. They've clearly heard her already with what a beast she's been crashing through the trees so there's no point in turning back but as she gets closer she makes out Beth's bun, and her pale legs, and everything about this feels sickly.

She finds herself clunking onto the dock anyway, coming to a stop a few feet away from Beth and sitting with her sad little cigarette.

A whole fucking lake and she finds the one place where Beth is.

It's painfully silent, not even the crickets wanting to approach the thick air between them. Somewhere in the distance something ripples the lake – a fish, probably – and Sarah takes to just holding the smoke in her mouth before releasing it so she won't risk coughing in front of the one person who should be taking all these dumb things about her and milking them for all they're worth.

"I didn't know you smoke," Beth says after a stretch of silence, instead of nearly a thousand other sentences Sarah expected.

They both stare at the cigarette between Sarah's fingers. Beth watches the paper burn.

"I don't, they're Rachel's. It's a-" _joke_ , Sarah was going to say, but then she's the one smoking so maybe it isn't.

Beth doesn't need her to finish the sentence anyway, head shifting in a slight nod and turning back out to face the lake. Sarah swallows hard at the way the moonlight paints the curve of Beth's neck, cutting almost like a noose.

Sarah panics and says, "we've missed you at the campfires" quite stupidly, immediately wanting to retract her words.

There isn't even a _we_ to begin with and Sarah's not an idiot, everyone knows why Beth doesn't come anymore, and this is such a mess she contemplates just rolling off the dock into the water to complete this fantastic evening. At least then she wouldn't have to listen to herself talk.

What looks to be the ghost of a smile graces Beth's lips. "Well you know, since Ali's DUI I've been trying to be supportive around events where there'll be alcohol."

Sarah's jaw actually drops a fraction of an inch because what? Martha fucking Stewart indeed.

Beth lets out a full-on chuckle and explains, "She's been trying to keep it a secret, but let's just say there was a _lot_ of community service involved. She's lucky her mother has friends in high places."

"That's-" Sarah just shakes her head, unable to stop a grin from forming. "Kay, I know she's your friend and all, but that's amazing."

"Not exactly what you'd expect from Alison, huh?" Beth says with a quirk of a smile.

Sarah brings the cigarette to her lips again and continues to shake her head in awe.

"Just don't spread it around," Beth asks, and Sarah swears. "She'd kill me if she knew I told and she'd probably get kicked out if the campers heard, so."

Sarah agrees, exhaling smoke into the night air. It's somewhat chilly without the sun, the humidity finally deciding to fuck off for a bit, and she sorta wishes she'd thought to put something on over her tank top; her arms have that marbleized look to them that she hates and her skin's threatening goose bumps.

Beth seems unaffected, having the good sense to bring a sweatshirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal her pale wrists. Sarah watches her trace one of the visible veins with her pinky nail, eyes still on some invisible horizon – it's soft and ghostly and such a _Beth_ action Sarah almost can't stand it, the way it aches in her chest, and she has to drag her eyes away to the glimmering water.

"You know," she says, needing to ripple the silence, "I've been arrested a couple times myself."

Beth's gaze snaps to her and there's a hint of amusement in it, as if she's not too surprised. "Really. Not a DUI, I hope."

Sarah has a sudden need to hear Beth bitch about Alison but files it away for another time when they're actually friends and everything with Paul is so far behind them they can't even remember his name. (It'd have to be another universe, but part of her is hopeful. She really does genuinely like the girl.)

"Uh, mostly shoplifting," she says with a shrug, remembering how _pleasantly_ Mrs. S took that. "Assault, once."

Beth glances down at Sarah's hands as if looking for evidence and Sarah curls her fingers.

"My boyfriend filed charges against me," she says softly. She takes another drag of the cigarette. "Because I finally- uh, stood up for myself for once."

"Shit," Beth breathes out.

It's nothing near the explanation Sarah's wanted so hard to give her, but it feels at least like a small crack in the glass for her to peer in; to maybe hold some stuff up together and catch sight of a pattern. _Listen, I make the worst choices when my sense of self-worth is involved_. But then, doesn't everybody? Is she just the only one who always seems to make those terrible choices with boys?

Her cigarette burns out and she tosses it in the lake, hoping some fish finds the butt and eats it and grows superpowers.

"The charges didn't stick of course," she says, because Beth seems to be thinking pretty hard about it.

"That's still..." Beth shakes her head and then tucks her hands under her bare thighs.

"Yeah," Sarah says.

Beth shuts her eyes for a second and when she opens them they're the color of murky glass. "Did you love him?"

Sarah inhales sharply, wondering how many times she can lose herself around Beth like this. It's the last thing she was expecting to hear and yet makes perfect sense, given everything, that this is where she'd take it; Sarah can almost see them talking about Paul in their reflections in the water, rippling where his name hits.

"I thought so," she says, quiet. "I still kinda... Maybe I still think so. I don't know. It really messed me up."

Beth nods like she truly might get it and is equally sorry and Sarah wishes she was someone who could hug her because she feels like they both need it.

Mostly she wants to apologize. Not even for Paul; just for this being how the cards were played.

"Ali's gonna kill me if I don't get some sleep tonight," Beth's saying suddenly, peeling herself off the dock.

Sarah tilts her head back to watch her stand up and feels incredibly small at her feet. "Yeah, course. You okay to-"

She was going to say _walk back alone_ but even if she wasn't Sarah isn't exactly the type of person to walk back with her, especially not with her cabin being attached to Alison's. She can just see Alison waiting with a pitchfork and shotgun like some possessive dad.

"See you at breakfast," Beth just says in reply.

Still, there's a hint of a smile there. Sarah holds onto it as Beth heads back through the trees to where her cabin sits, wanting to immortalize the way it slightly, momentarily, lit up her eyes.

She stays at the dock for another twenty minutes, hand covering the cigarettes in her pocket, thinking equally of Beth and Rachel and how liberating it was to take an ashtray to Vic's face and how much she misses getting to run down hills, completely untethered. What it was to be absolutely free.

And then when everything inside her aches as if she's been out running in the bitter cold for hours she finally heads back through the dense forest, almost grateful, in the dark, to have forgotten her flashlight. To only have that distant glimmer of light from the mess hall ahead of her and to have nothing else to do but continue to move forward.

/

Sarah sleeps through the staff meeting in the morning and apparently so does Rachel because the moment Delphine has her kids seated at breakfast she heads over to them, motioning for Sarah to join her where Rachel sits near her girls with a black coffee. Smart move on Delphine's part, Sarah thinks as she scoots down the bench. No way Rachel's moving anywhere for the next twenty minutes.

The girl looks about as rough as Sarah feels; a bruise-like shadow under her eyes, the look of death across her face. Even her usually perfect hair has a slight bit sticking out in the back that Sarah finds herself wanting to smooth down as she gets squashed in next to her by Delphine.

"I'm going to assume your cabin was overlooked this morning," Delphine says as she twists on the bench to face them both, "and not that the two of you _both_ decided not to show up."

"For the..." Rachel blinks, groggy and looking ready to stab whichever child talks to her first.

Sarah can't imagine how wake-up went in her bunk this morning. "Staff meeting," she fills in. Delphine nods and takes a sip of coffee.

Where Sarah is trapped in the middle she's acutely aware of Rachel's breathing, so close she can feel the heat of it on her neck and is forced to hold herself in an uncomfortably stiff position to meet Delphine's gaze while not blocking Rachel's view. She imagines the three of them are quite the sight: all in a row with their coffee cups, so close their elbows are touching. Delphine either has no sense of personal space or she's enjoying forcing Sarah into this.

"It's not like we missed anything," Sarah guesses going on every other staff meeting she's been to.

Rachel exhales beside her and onto her collarbone. She wishes she'd worn a turtleneck.

"Unless you count nothing as Rachel being chosen to lead the group hike this afternoon," Delphine says with pointedly raised eyebrows.

Sarah snorts and tries to bury it in her coffee. "That's shit, mate."

Rachel says nothing but her body is stiff and Sarah's almost glad she can't see her expression. Judging from the look one of her kids is giving her it's terrifying.

"Alison was chosen to lead with her," Delphine goes on, and Sarah full-out laughs. "Yes, but then she had a little _chat_ with the director and he asked for someone to replace her and you'll never guess who Cosima volunteered."

Delphine doesn't have that murderous look in her eyes that Sarah would expect if it was her and her stomach sinks at the realization.

"Are you bloody kidding me," she bites out.

It's Rachel's turn to let out a little laugh and Sarah lets it slide only because she knows exactly who's going to sign up for the hike and who they'll be leading through the fucking _mountains_ in absolute hell clouds of mosquitoes this afternoon.

"I'd advise not skipping out next time," Delphine says with a lift of her shoulders.

Sarah narrows her eyes at her. "Or maybe you could talk to your bloody girlfriend about _her own business_."

Rachel exhales a laugh through her nose that hits Sarah's neck in an odd spot and she scoots as far back on the bench as possible, just wanting to get back to her snotty kids for once and away from all of this, smacking the table as she finds herself caught between the two of them. No way to extract her legs without kicking either one of them and god, would she love to.

"You might ask one of us to move," Rachel says, looking down at Sarah's boots in the coldest way.

"Well," Delphine says, taking in the both of them, "I just thought I'd let you two know and since that's done and I have my seven year-olds to get back to..."

She slips away before Sarah can think to throttle her but she does look back in time to catch a particularly nasty look. Sarah saves a second one for Rachel.

"You're very much free to go now," Rachel sniffs.

She's right, there's nothing holding her in place anymore with Delphine huddled at her table with Cosima and about a thousand tiny kids, but Sarah still turns her head so she's inches away from Rachel's face and holds her gaze tightly.

"Lemme tell you, this hike is not for the faint of heart," she warns.

Rachel swallows and she finds herself watching it move her throat before snapping her eyes back up.

"I assure you I've been on a hike before," Rachel says, but between the slight falter in her voice and the piece of hair that's still sticking out Sarah can't take her seriously.

She finds her hand coming up without thinking and before she can stop herself she's reaching out to pat the hair back into place. Rachel absolutely _freezes_ at the contact and the table of girls stares at them as if shocked to see someone this close to Rachel without getting their hand snapped off; it'd be comical if Sarah wasn't the one trying to slowly scoot away, her hand still in the air between them like a guilty kid.

" _What_ ," Rachel all but hisses, "do you think you're doing."

Sarah's lips tug down at the corners as she stares with wide eyes at the hair she just touched. "Uh... it was all mussed up," she manages to get out, moving farther down the bench without breaking her gaze.

Rachel's hand comes to touch where Sarah's had been and she glowers like she took the chunk of hair with her.

"This is why you're the witch," one of Rachel's kids mutters as she munches on a piece of toast.

It's enough to break the tension and Sarah laughs with the rest of the girls. Rachel, rolling her eyes, goes back to her pretentious black coffee and nurses it like it's the only thing keeping her from just walking out right now and heading back to bed. Sarah really wouldn't blame her, needing about six more hours of sleep herself before she feels ready to tackle this hike.

As she slides back over to her end of the table Quinn loudly announces that she's _sooo pumped for the hike_ and Sarah glances at the coffee machine, wondering how much she can fit in her body before she spontaneously combusts.

The answer is apparently three cups – she takes the third one to go, smuggling the Styrofoam-housed bastard out the mess hall and back to the cabin for bunk inspections, and by first activity block she's so jittery she actually has to sit down on the edge of the tennis court to collect herself much to Quinn's delight.

"Tennis is for rich people," she says in the same breath as, "look at Daniela's butt jiggle!"

And Sarah really, truly, wants nothing more than to head back to bed and start this day all over again. At least disappear long enough to punch Cosima in the face.

/

Sarah's first summer here she got roped into doing the hike with Mark, who turned out to know his shit when it came to nature. The route for these afternoon hikes is the worst, he'd told her, handing her a thing of bug spray that she hadn't thought to bring, particularly as it cuts through The Mountains at a steep incline where every bug in the world comes to hang out.

The hike itself wasn't the issue. Sarah's thighs ached for days after, but that paled in comparison to trying to wrangle the types of kids who willingly sign up for this hike through slippery rocks and across a fucking _river_.

"Quinn may have tried to drown me last year," she explains to Rachel as they're packing their bags in the clearing.

Rachel's face pales and she glances over to the farthest picnic table where Quinn has Daniela's water bottle and is tossing it in the air. Daniela at least doesn't seem too fazed after three days of this.

"What exactly," Rachel asks, slipping another granola bar into her bag, "transpired there?"

Sarah had gotten to the place where she could laugh about it, during the year, knowing it was nothing in comparison to that god-awful canoe trip, but now in the face of another trek with a group of demons (actually, most of them aren't that bad as far as she knows) it's creeping down her skin in the same chilling way again.

"Let's just say she thought it was funny," she says with a grimace.

To jump off the log in the first place, and then when Sarah went in after her to hold them both down in such a way she wasn't sure it wasn't a suicide mission. Luckily her own need for air won out and Quinn popped back up with a grin but Sarah tasted algae in her mouth for weeks after. And Quinn, with that charming face of hers, never said a word about it.

None of Mark's warnings had covered a near-death experience and she can still picture the way he continued to glance back at her, the color of snow, the entire way down. As if she might disappear in those intervals where he tried not to trip.

The upshot of doing it again this year is that nearly all of Alison's kids pulled out when she did, choosing her field hockey session instead to be close to her. Sarah would have preferred kayaking or cooking (not that she can cook in any way, but the kitchen staff like her and don't mind when she 'supervises') but she seems less likely to be subject to camp songs without Alison's girls and she'd rather eat river mud again than listen to the thousandth rendition of _Baby Bumblebee_.

She catches Rachel just as they're about to head off and mutters at her ear, "I swear on my life if you try to start a song I will tie you up to a tree and let the bears chew your face off."

One of the younger kids, a chunky boy from Rudy's group, stares at Sarah with wide eyes and drags his buddy back a few steps. Rachel purses her lips.

"Honestly, Sarah, if you've learned anything about me-"

She doesn't have time to finish because upon first sign of confirmation Sarah sends the kids marching into the forest with a shout, determined to make it through this with only minor flesh wounds and hopefully back with enough time to sleep before dinner. Even with getting fished out of the river last time she and Mark finished before the two hours were up; Mark insisted she see the nurse as soon as they got back, worried about a dry drowning, but Sarah headed straight for her bunk.

(She didn't swallow _that_ much water. It wasn't as if she could feel it rattling around inside her or anything.)

What she doesn't consider, however, clomping through the leaves, is Rachel's complete inability to read a map.

After a good half hour climbing mostly in silence (minus a bout of shouting when someone thought they saw a deer that turned out to be an oddly-shaped boulder) Rachel slows to a stop ahead of Sarah and just lets the map fall to her side in a limp hand.

Sarah glances at Quinn beside her and then jogs up to where Rachel's standing, staring very calmly out at the thick of trees surrounding them.

It'd be beautiful if Sarah wasn't picking up on Rachel's growing apprehension; under the canopy, the sun comes down in mottled patches – giving the rocky earth an almost geometric feel. Sarah's been snapping pictures here and there to bring back to Felix but her camera hangs heavy around her neck as Rachel finally turns to look at her.

"What's up?" Sarah asks lightly, aware of the kids bumbling to a stop behind her.

With just over twenty of them and their variously exhaustion-stunned faces it looks too much like a ravenous mob for Sarah to let herself turn around. She doesn't need the nightmares later.

"It's just," Rachel says, blinking and glancing down at the crinkled map in her hands, "I wasn't exactly aware that there were multiple routes on this. And I may have... ah, been following several of them. So essentially none of them."

Sarah's stomach flips. "So we're basically..."

Rachel nods and apparently neither of them wants to say it.

"Well that can't be right," Sarah says, snatching the map from Rachel's hands.

Their fingers graze and her breath hitches at the contact, trying to play it off like she was startled by something off in the distance. The kids are getting antsy anyway, murmuring amongst themselves about the impromptu break, Quinn and Daniela frowning at Sarah like she's trying to pull another _sit down and shut up_ moment like last hike. Sarah wonders if Eye Spy will work this time.

She pointedly steps away from Rachel to read the map, not letting herself think about the warmth of the paper where Rachel had been holding it.

"North is the red arrow on the compass," Rachel informs her and Sarah snaps back, "I'm not an idiot, thank-you."

One of Paul's tall boys snickers at this but quiets down when Rachel sets her sharp eyes on him.

The map isn't... _entirely_ illegible, with years of use wearing it out in the creases and the original design so small Sarah finds herself squinting at the legend. She'd let Mark handle this shit last time because he seemed to know what he was doing; now that she thinks about it he didn't look at the map at all.

The plus side is she definitely recognizes the river. And she's been hearing water for a while now, so they can't be _too_ far off.

"You didn't happen to bring a compass with you, did you?" she asks Rachel.

Rachel looks at her like _why the fuck would I do a thing like that_ and seems ready to say so but a younger boy, Seth's, maybe, comes at them with a Boy Scouts-issued compass and proudly presents it to Sarah with a dimpled grin.

"My mom didn't think I'd need it," he tells her, shifting from one foot to the other. "But I knew we'd be going in the forest and we're always supposed to be prepared so I brought it anyway. Do you know how to use it?"

Rachel smirks and Sarah deliberately looks down at the compass in her hand, watching the arrow wiggle around. "Of course I do," she says.

The boy nods unconvincingly and then looks at the compass himself.

"That's north," he says, pointing out into the trees.

It's a blur of green is what it is but north is definitely a direction on the map and she holds it up to try to compare. The whines of _are we lost_ start to come from the group as she does so, along with a few kids taking out their trail mix. Rachel glares at all of them until they're quiet again.

Sarah would thank her if she didn't get them into this mess in the first place and remembering Rachel didn't even mention she can't read maps when Sarah told her to walk in the front has her chest burning with rage again. Because really? That wasn't even a thought that crossed her mind as they walked for thirty-odd minutes?

"I think the river would be this way," the kid says, pointing to their left, after examining the map.

"Well look at you," Sarah says as she ruffles his ashy hair.

He rewards her with another smile, the dimple so sweet she resists the urge to touch it. God, she wishes she could trade for the boys. She does so much better with them than catty, drama-filled girls.

"So we know where we're going?" Rachel asks in a tone that suggests she's had nothing to do with this.

Sarah narrows her eyes and takes the whistle from her as well. "Yeah, no thanks to you. Walk in the back, will you? I'll get us to our rest point and then we'll see if there's time to continue."

Rachel opens her mouth as if about to protest but then seems to realize she now has the easier job, following behind and rounding up the stragglers. If the state of her tennis shoes is anything to go on she'll enjoy the slower pace. Why on earth she didn't bring hiking boots to a camp in the woods is beyond Sarah.

Rachel ends up walking with Quinn and two of her own girls (the one with the limp and the little one that was hounding her at the picnic table yesterday) and seems rightly miserable with the conversation, maybe even a little bit scared to be so close to Quinn. Sarah smirks as she turns around again; serves her right for dragging them this far off the path.

They make it to the river in decent enough time thanks to Sarah's relentless (and exhausting) pace. Breaking through the trees is like walking straight into a wall of mosquitoes and she's grateful for her bug spray as they bounce off her skin and into the dirt below.

Rachel's whiney kid keeps opening her mouth to let everyone know they're flying _in_ her mouth, and Sarah snorts as she catches Rachel's eye: a silent plea of _this is what I deal with every waking hour_.

"We'll be fine on the other side of the river," Sarah tells everyone, knowing full well what a lie that is and just wanting them to quit bitching.

She doesn't miss how, as soon as they're gearing up to cross the giant log, Rachel sends Quinn to the front of the group for Sarah to handle.

"If I drown you and the kids'll starve to death up here," she calls over to Rachel, who's reapplying bug spray to her long, surprisingly tan legs. Sarah purposely looks away at the nearest thing to her, Quinn, a smug smile creeping out as she catches Quinn's look of alarm.

"My mom made me watch _Lord of The Flies_ before camp this year," Quinn says in a quiet voice.

Sarah's eyebrows raise.

"She was going through a classics phase," Quinn explains, eyeing her fellow campers like trying to decide who'd get eaten first. "Thought I could learn something."

Sarah helps Quinn up onto the log first, clutching her hand tight. "Looks like you might need me to make it across this log then, huh?"

The current isn't too strong today, but the sight of forest debris and clumps of algae floating down river has Sarah's stomach churning. Even after all the mouthwash she can still taste it; the chalky, sulfur-like flavor and the way it forced itself up her nose.

Quinn catches her glancing down as they walk, leading the way for the group behind them, and raises her head sheepishly.

"Your payback's gonna come at this year's water fight," Sarah lets her know.

Quinn swallows and her grip tightens and on the other side, when she finally lets go, she's left little fingernail marks in the skin of Sarah's palms. Sarah sends her back to Rachel as soon as everyone's crossed the log.

They stop for snack and a rest less than ten minutes later, at a clearing of picnic tables that thankfully confirms they've made it back to the route. Everything is slightly angled so that any water bottles left on their sides roll off the tables and down through some rocks, and as Sarah unpeels her backpack from her sweaty back she laughs at the sight of kids chasing after them.

It feels nice to sit, her feet screaming as she leans back against the table and looks out at the slope of trees before them. Her tank top is wet in the back where her bag was resting but there's enough of a breeze to cool her down a little and it keeps most of the mosquitoes at bay. At least enough to not feel like she'll catch them in her teeth if she dares open her mouth.

Rachel joins her on the bench a few minutes later; she's arguably more disheveled than Sarah, her cheeks pink and sweat glistening on her neck and collarbone. It's... quite the sight. Sarah drops her gaze and blames her pulse on just having hiked up here.

"If I ever see another tree..." Rachel threatens lazily, her voice gravely from exhaustion and doing more for Sarah than she'd like to admit.

She exhales and forces a smile. "Just wait for the walk back down, Rach."

Rachel eyes her in what could almost be amusement at the nickname that slipped out and Sarah realizes, suddenly, how close they truly are on this bench, Rachel really not leaving her much space. If she scoots over she'll be in the dirt. It seems like a better option than sitting here with that dumb shortened version of her name floating in the air between them and Sarah brings her water bottle to her lips to try and wash away the embarrassment.

" _Evie_!" Rachel snaps suddenly, a finger pointed at the whiney child who's attempting to climb an overhanging tree.

Evie turns with guilt and fear all over her face and slowly inches down the trunk, apparently not realizing how close she was to tumbling down the small cliff. Rachel probably only called her back so she wouldn't have to go chasing after her but Sarah still sneaks her a glance of appreciation.

"I don't want to see a single camper up in a tree," Rachel warns, commanding the attention of the group as they mostly chug water and sit draped over the tables. "Or anywhere away from the picnic tables, or playing a hand game. _Not_ in my presence."

There isn't a single complaint mostly due to exhaustion but Sarah still gives her a little smile.

"Not a fan of that Tarzan shit?" she asks quiet enough so the kids don't hear.

Rachel looks at her like she'd rather eat glass. "Someone taught my girls this morning. I want them dead."

In all likelihood it was one of Alison's kids but Sarah still feels guilty, not putting it past Afsheen or Sameera to be spreading that shit around. It's like some sort of camp plague.

(She'd been concerned _she_ was the camp plague, with the state of her body yesterday. But a nap and more coffee than she wishes to have consumed in so little time seems to have knocked it out of her. That, or an actual conversation with Beth scared her immune system back into working order.)

Rachel manages to down half her water bottle without making a sound, the hydration alleviating some of the rosiness of her cheeks but doing nothing for the smudge of dirt on her neck. Sarah can't imagine how that got there. Or how dirty _she_ must be if Rachel Duncan has dirt on her.

She half wishes for a mirror to maybe sort herself out but then also really doesn't want to see her hair in this condition; it feels sentient enough as is and acknowledging it might give it actual life.

"I feel like _shite_ ," she settles on saying, low for only Rachel to hear.

Rachel laughs and the sound is pleasantly surprising.

"I'm sure I look as bad as you," Rachel says, eyes drifting down Sarah's body.

Sarah shivers as she feels them pass over her skin and wishes she'd worn pants. It has to be the heat, but whatever is happening with her stupid brain and Rachel today is seriously unnerving. Twilight Zone, or something. She drinks more water to drown it.

"You're looking a little flushed," Rachel says, and Sarah swears if that's a smirk- "I hope you aren't dehydrated. Do you have anything with electrolytes?"

"I'm fine," Sarah all but croaks.

Rachel's eyebrow lifts as a definite smirk slips out. "Maybe a quick dunk in the river, then. I'm sure Quinn would love to facilitate."

Sarah smacks her with the map and hops up to find somewhere else to sit, leaving Rachel in her smugness on the splintery bench, and does her best to ignore the strange lightness in her chest that's suddenly afflicting her. No fucking way is this happening. With _Rachel_.

Come hell or high water she is drinking tonight to bury this deep, deep inside her.

/

They make it back to camp just as the dinner gong sounds. The path down was at least slightly less grueling than the way up but paired with Rachel's eyes on her the whole descent Sarah feels ready to jump in the lake – something she heavily considers as they pass by it to head to the mess hall, only moving on because her body's so tired she'd probably sink straight to the bottom.

The kids disperse to their tables as soon as they enter the mess hall; Rachel brings her two girls over to the rest of her group without a word and Sarah drops down hard on her bench, wondering if Madeleine will grab her something to eat when their table's called up to the kitchen line because she's sure as hell not getting up again.

"You look terrible," Raya tells her as she grabs for another napkin.

She's building some sort of origami-like creature that was probably inspired by her art session and Sarah wishes she'd been picked to lead that instead. The only upside is she's off the hook for hikes for the rest of the summer – and she and Rachel aren't likely to be stuck leading an activity together again, so she can let whatever the hike planted inside her die out as it deserves. Her face feels hot at the thought.

"Did you drink _any_ water?" Madeleine chides. She has her hair in a sort of braided half-crown that wasn't there earlier, looking more put together than anyone should be at camp.

Sarah wouldn't be surprised to run into her one day in an impressive pantsuit in a courtroom, some fancy lawyer who'll either be prosecuting Sarah or looking through her at the coffee cart as she puts in her order. Some kids are just born to rule the world, she guesses. Mrs. S would probably say Sarah was born to cause trouble.

"I'm not dehydrated," Sarah promises and Madeleine tuts.

She resists the urge to put her head down, knowing Paul wouldn't miss a chance to come over and offer her a _favor_ , still holding out for the right moment to ask for something in return. A glance down the bench makes her feel better – Rachel seems to have face-planted on the table and decided to stay there, her kids putting bits of napkin in her hair without fear of repercussion.

They seem to actually like her, Sarah thinks. She'd been so sure the kids would see right through her and burn her at the stake but apparently there's something in her that charmed them and they laugh around her like she's part of their group. Even with them calling her their witch they still seem to adore her.

Sarah wonders if she's been going about this all wrong, putting in too much effort when clearly not caring at all would've gained her the same respect.

"She's gonna slap somebody when she wakes up," Quinn says, grinning at Rachel's paper-filled hair.

"I will too if you try that with me," Sarah warns her, and looks around at the rest of the girls for good measure. They roll their eyes but still signal that they got it.

Their table's called a minute later, everybody but Quinn and Daniela hopping to their feet to go line up. Quinn makes Daniela yank her upright and the two walk over like they've been through a war and Sarah savors the moment, knowing it won't be long before Quinn's back to harassing her, so predictable in her anger.

Sarah doesn't even pretend to budge from where she's planted herself on the bench. Madeleine glances back, concern turning to exasperation and she snags a second plastic tray. God bless her.

Rachel apparently doesn't have it in her to grab dinner either; she peels herself off the table slowly, napkin bits raining down and teetering in her upright position. She's clearly aware of the mess in her hair but doesn't even bother to pull her fingers through it.

"You can share whatever Madeleine brings back for me," Sarah calls down the table. It's only about four feet but it feels like a canyon.

Rachel gives her half an eye roll. "I'm sure you'd find some way to poison it. No thank-you."

"So you'd rather starve?" Sarah frowns, semi wondering if there _is_ a way to poison it.

"I have crackers in my bunk," Rachel says curtly. On Sarah's incredulous look, she adds, "they're almond-based, they're very good."

They'd better be in a sealed container, Sarah thinks but is too tired to say out loud. If the cabins get ants because of Rachel she's tossing her in the lake, suitcase and all. There's no way she's dealing with a bug infestation again.

Madeleine returns with two trays balanced in her arms and a deliberate bottle of water rolling around on what's obviously Sarah's tray. She drops it down in front of her, sliding in to sit next to her as the rest of the girls join them. Quinn looks a little put-out to see Madeleine taking her spot but doesn't say anything.

"I got you salad because you don't take care of your body," Madeleine tells her, pointing at the giant bowl. "Hard-boiled eggs for protein."

"My mom says the yolks'll make you fat," Quinn says as she digs in to her mac and cheese.

Madeleine raises her eyebrows at Quinn's plate. "Your mom's an idiot, no offence."

Sarah's expecting food to be flung or something to be knocked off the table in anger but Quinn just shrugs and stabs at a piece of pasta, clearly having accepted this long ago. Sarah feels a pang of sympathy for her.

"What can I give to Rachel, since she also clearly doesn't take care of her body?" Sarah asks Madeleine, glancing over at where Rachel's finally removing the napkin bits from her hair.

Rachel's posture stiffens at Sarah's comment but she refrains from saying anything in return as if she's finally someone who takes the high road.

Madeleine taps her fork against her chin. "Hmm, the banana maybe? I can go back and grab her something if you want..."

From the end of the table Sophia pipes up, startling Sarah who'd forgotten she was there. "She can have my stir-fry, I didn't even touch it. I didn't know there was zucchini in it otherwise I wouldn't have taken it."

Madeleine gets up to grab it, taking the cornbread Zohal offers up and Raya's second juice box as well. It's probably more than Rachel would have taken herself and she looks quite sheepish as Madeleine brings it to her but thanks her anyway, catching Sarah's eye to give her a quick nod before examining what vegetables she's about to put into her body.

As Madeleine sits back down to eat, frowning at Sarah picking around the spinach leaves, she tells Quinn, " _this_ is why they're adults."

Quinn snorts out a laugh and shakes her head, unable to argue with that.

/

It's a campfire and skit night for the kids so there's no point in the staff having a fire of their own, no one wanting to return to the spot where they watched twenty different reenactments of the Minions movie while kids wiped marshmallows on their shirts.

No fire means drinking in the boathouse, which means the senior camp staff are less likely to show because they'd rather do the same thing on their low ropes course. Why the junior camp doesn't head over there is beyond Sarah; she'd much rather get drunk on the giant spiderweb than in the damp, splinter-filled boathouse. And she always misses Krystal when she's not around. There's just something about the girl that makes everything more enjoyable.

Sarah drags herself down to the boathouse anyway, bringing a hoodie just in case tonight gets as chilly as last night. It's still humid, so she doubts it, but at the very least she'll have something to sit on.

She'd considered inviting Rachel again, spending ten minutes stood outside her window trying to psych herself up to knock, but decided that a) Rachel would much rather sleep than hang out and b) there's no way Sarah wants her around if she really does get drunk. And somehow the thought of seeing Rachel with a few drinks in her has her skin feeling hot – it'd either be the worst or best thing to happen to her.

"You're quiet tonight," Delphine says as they float in one of the rowboats tied to a dock.

Cosima is beside her with bourbon, of all things, having made a nest for herself out of lifejackets, and runs her hand along Delphine's bare legs to the rhythm of whatever techno crap is playing from a nearby boombox. Delphine either doesn't notice or would rather not publicly acknowledge that she does but Sarah knows that composure will be gone in three drinks.

Sarah drags a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. "Long day. Thanks again, Cosima."

Cosima barely lifts her head but at least has the decency to look sort of guilty.

"Hey," she says. "I thought you wanted to give Rachel a chance to open up, it seemed like a good opportunity."

Sarah's exact words were _Rachel needs to open the fuck up_ and she definitely didn't mean with _her_ , which Cosima clearly knew. This was just vindictive.

"You just wanted to see me suffer," she tosses back and Cosima grins.

Delphine takes the opportunity to top up Sarah's glass with the cheap wine she brought tonight, no doubt procured from one of the pimply camp drivers who fall over their own feet every time Delphine looks in their direction. Her commitment to drinking is impressive.

Sarah gulps down about half of it, wincing at the bitter taste. It isn't even a white or red thing – she just can't stand wine. But it's looking a lot better than Cosima's bourbon, which she still has no clue as to its origins. Hell, maybe. Her parents' liquor cabinet? If Sarah had taken anything from Mrs. S she'd have been slapped into last year but Cosima's parents seem a lot more chill from what Sarah's seen on Skype. Exactly the type of deadheads she'd expect to raise Cosima. Sarah secretly loves them.

"Did Rachel do anything particularly awful today?" Delphine asks, leaning back against a lifejacket. It's muggy in here and the mosquitoes are out in full force but her hair still looks majestic.

"Just..." Sarah takes another sip and tries not to think about Rachel's legs. "Uh, she got us lost for a bit actually, but we figured it out."

Delphine and Cosima share a glance and Sarah focuses very hard on the glint of a lantern against the motorboat across from them. Neither of them can read minds to her knowledge but two and a half drinks in she wouldn't put it past her face to betray her. _Seeing her covered in sweat and dirt did something to me. I think I finally snapped._

"What the hell happened there?" Cosima asks and props herself up on her elbows so she can see Sarah over Delphine's legs.

The boys are playing some sort of game behind the canoes, a triumphant roar coming up from the group. Sarah wonders distantly if Paul remembers taking her back there; remembers how she cut her back on a rough chunk of wood and wouldn't let him stop to take a look.

There's probably still a scar. She's been careful with her gaze every time she's in front of a mirror, not wanting to know.

"A mix up with the map," she says idly, and presses the Styrofoam rim to her lips.

The acrid scent of wine fills her nose but it's better than Paul's body spray, so infused in this boathouse she swears she can taste it every time she hears him yell out.

It's vague enough that neither Cosima or Delphine feel like pressing the issue, or they sense she won't give them any more details even if they prod. She doesn't know why she isn't spilling the whole story, glorifying the littlest bits to rile them up even more, not at all caring about Rachel's reputation at this camp. She's done a good enough job herself at letting everyone know she doesn't want to be here; learning she's also terrible at it won't surprise anyone.

No, it feels more, she admits to herself, holding out her cup so Delphine can refill it, like an act of preservation – like keeping it to herself will keep it whole, and she's for some reason afraid to lose it.

It isn't even- god, nothing even happened.

She sat next to Rachel at the picnic table, and Rachel was as tired and dirty as she was and somehow looked like a goddess anyway. Smirking like... like she _knew_. Like she enjoyed the effect it had on Sarah, no doubt looking to rub it in later when Sarah least expects it. Rachel's playing some evil game and Sarah hates that she feels three steps behind.

"I don't think we'll be seeing her back here next year," Delphine says of Rachel, relaxing into Cosima's side.

Sarah frowns in the dark and tries to hide it behind another sip of wine. "You probably said the same thing about me, last year. God knows I made my share of mistakes."

"Yes, but you wanted to be here," Delphine says as Cosima asks "are you defending her?"

"Yeah," Sarah mutters. "No. I don't fucking know."

The wooden bench seat between them in the boat acts as some sort of barrier, Sarah feeling small and stupid on the other side of their lifejacket nest. They're in the cozy bow and she's curled up like some baby in the very middle of the rowboat, her sweatshirt balled up like a pillow, rocking with the gentle lap of the lake and hating how the two of them are looking at her.

"I just think- it's only the first week," Sarah tries again, staring at the wine bottle sitting on the seat next to her. "Maybe we're being a bit harsh."

"You were quite lost the first week," Delphine offers as she tangles her fingers with Cosima's.

Sarah shuts her eyes, tilting her face upwards to where all the spiders are probably watching. "Exactly, you know, she could just be kinda homesick or this is her first real job or... I mean, we know nothing about her. I feel kinda sorry for her."

She doesn't. Or she does, but it's more that Rachel seems like she wouldn't even know if she _was_ lonely, so used to being alone. Maybe if they took the time to get to know her...

Her head is as muggy as the soupy air, skin flushed in a way that needs a long cold shower.

As if Rachel Duncan would let anyone get to know her. Sarah laughs at herself for even entertaining the idea and shifts in the boat so her legs hang over the edge, toes dipping in the water, flat on her back on a pile of algae-covered rope. From her new vantage point all she can see is paddles and lifejackets in the rafters above her, faint outlines in the dark; spiderwebs drape over everything, shining here and there from lanterns and flashlights, and it all swims a little as she tries to focus.

"Maybe too much wine," Delphine says, reaching over to put a cool hand on Sarah's forehead.

No, Sarah thinks, not too much. Not nearly enough if she still can't stop thinking about Rachel.

/

She finds herself stumbling back through the forest about half an hour later, sweatshirt on but sleeves rolled up and wildly missing every mosquito she tries to swat out of the air. It strikes her as funny, her own hand hitting her thigh as it drops, and she laughs hard enough to need to grab onto the nearest tree to keep herself upright.

Maybe Delphine had a point about the wine; she can already feel a headache forming through the fog, everything pressing down in a strange, metallic way.

Coming up to the cabin is a godsend as she tries to regulate her body, wanting nothing more than to down a water bottle and curl up in bed for the four and a half hours until the morning bugle. She's so focused on the thought of sleep that she nearly misses Rachel sitting calmly on the porch steps, flicking mindlessly through a book there's no way she can read in the dark, her phone quiet on the step beside her.

"Rachel," Sarah gets out, aiming to say much more but falling short as she approaches the porch.

Rachel looks up with _worry_. Her hazel eyes are shining in the faint moonlight, and Sarah clutches onto the rail post to steady herself.

There's a moment of absolute silence as Rachel sets her book down beside her, pulling her knees in a little tighter as if afraid to take up too much space. And then she's shaking her head with a self-deprecating smile and lets her eyes drift up Sarah's body in the slowest, most excruciating way possible and Sarah finds herself holding her breath, not even sure what she's waiting for.

"I had too much wine," Sarah mumbles when she's sure she feels Rachel's gaze on her lips. It was red so it probably stained but that doesn't seem to be why she's lingering.

"I was concerned you might not make it back all right," Rachel says, finally looking away.

She runs a hand down her camisole (a silky, cloud-colored thing) and then busies herself with her book, fingering the torn cover.

Sarah swallows and forces herself to focus on the book and not her lithe fingers.

"What are you reading?" she asks. It comes out slightly slurred and she wants to roll her eyes at herself for being such a cliché.

"Camus," Rachel says, like she's said it a thousand times before, but then quietly asks, "would you like to hear an excerpt?"

A bloom of heat creeps across Sarah's chest as she nods and carefully lowers herself to the bottom step, sitting so she can lean against the railing and still see Rachel's graceful form above her. It feels, strangely, not unlike a Christmas mass Mrs. S dragged them to once where all the children were asked to come up to hear the pastor tell the Nativity story – but somehow, in the dark, full of wine, a little more holy. Maybe it's the stars. Maybe... Sarah stops thinking.

Rachel cracks the book open to an obviously memorized page, the corner folded down in a way that looks like it's been there forever. "Just a brief passage," she says.

Sarah nods and rests her head against the railing and all she can see is Rachel.

"I ask what is involved in the condition I recognize as mine," Rachel reads, her voice gentle and sure , lilting over the words. "I know it implies obscurity and ignorance; and I am assured that this ignorance explains everything and that this darkness is my light. But there is no reply here to my intent and this stirring lyricism cannot hide the paradox from me."

The words hit Sarah in waves, falling over her skin in Rachel's voice like the start of a rainstorm that hasn't yet had time to learn to be forceful.

Rachel dips her head as she waits for a response, her short hair shifting like an ashen curtain down the curve of her jaw, giving her the illusion of water that Sarah's been craving for hours now.

"That's- wow, deep shit," Sarah mumbles, her tongue thick in her mouth.

Rachel glances upwards and shakes her head a little and says "I knew you wouldn't be able to appreciate its nuances" as if the spell's finally broken, gathering her stuff and standing up in a fluid motion that has Sarah's head pounding.

"I take it you can make it to bed all right?" Rachel asks before heading inside, waiting just long enough for Sarah's confirmation.

And then she's gone and Sarah's alone on the steps, the world suddenly filled with crickets and a deep, velveteen sky, and one line keeps playing on repeat in Sarah's mind: _this darkness is my light_. Over and over in Rachel's voice, assuring her it is.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: _trigger warning_ \- this chapter contains a suicide attempt. please consider your comfort level when reading- it involves blood and there is a mention of pills as means of committing suicide. there's also a brief discussion on menstruation and a mention of domestic violence. all of this takes place near the end; the suicide attempt after karaoke night. **

**(and just a heads up, chapters on FF/net take longer to be posted because of formatting issues and the effort it takes to fix that; i'm on AO3 under the same name with regular updates and will likely only be posting to AO3 after this fic is finished. sorry for any inconvenience!)**

/

Sarah sees Rachel – outside of meals – three times in the three days following Thursday night's wine incident. (Sarah can't call it anything else. Sarah can't even think about it.)

The first occurs while Sarah's still hungover Friday morning, hiding behind sunglasses and another coffee smuggled out of the mess hall, walking her girls to the soccer field. Rachel is at archery with an arrow in her hands; Sarah stumbles as Rachel looks over and spills her coffee down her legs. There's still a stain on her sneakers.

The second: Sarah leads a giant game of Capture The Flag on Saturday while a good chunk of the camp is on a day trip. Rachel runs a nature walk through enemy territory, glinting like a bullet in the sun. Sarah isn't sure if she's the deer or the hunter – Rachel stares her down anyway, not even flinching as one of Beth's girls runs into her with the flag. Sarah seems to lose and she hadn't even picked a side.

The third is quiet and Sarah nearly overlooks it, but they accidentally share a log at Sunday morning's non-denominational Reflection Time and Sarah listens to her breathe all through a nature meditation. They don't make eye contact. Sarah doesn't even mention it to Delphine after.

(All she's told Delphine so far is that Rachel waited up for her on Thursday. Anything more and it'd become something bigger, and even the brief comment to Cosima that Rachel was still awake has the girl convinced there's something going on. _I can guarantee you it's nothing_ , Sarah promised. And it is now, with how well they're doing at ignoring each other.)

She still hears her at night, padding around her room through the shared wall not unlike a caged animal. She's sure Rachel hears her pacing as well.

Sarah's helping her girls load their bows on the archery field when someone finally says something, breaking whatever silence had somehow grown up around it. Quinn's shooting imaginary arrows into the sky as she does so and then aims her empty bow at Rachel's rigid form on the bleachers.

"She's a narcissist," Quinn says, letting another imaginary arrow fly.

Sarah fumbles with Ava's bow. "What? How'd you learn that word?"

The specialist gives her an exasperated look from the other end of the line and she resists the urge to point out that she could easily, and very well within her job description, just let him do this on his own. God knows she's not looking to do anything but kill time.

"That's what my dad says my mom is," Quinn says. She squints an eye at the top part of her bow, where some of the paint is coming off in little flakes.

"What do you think it means?" Sarah asks, watching Zohal set up her bow just fine on her own. Right.

Clearly not needed, she circles back to Quinn.

"Someone who just thinks about themselves," Quinn says. She's running her thumb over the chipped paint, frowning. "Doesn't know how to care about other people."

Sarah glances at Rachel sitting by herself on the bleachers, staring out at her girls on the field. From behind she seems docile, harmless. Sarah imagines taking a seat beside her and not getting a cold remark in return.

"I don't know," she says. "I don't think that's the right word for her."

Quinn considers this as she plucks on the string, something they've been warned repeatedly not to do and is why she still has to earn back her arrow privilege. "I have lots of other words my dad calls my mom," she offers.

Sarah swallows back a laugh. "Oh, I'm sure you do."

Quinn smiles for a second like she might get why it's funny and then immediately shoots off another invisible arrow, cheering when it lands at her desired destination, Rachel. Sarah leaves her to it, heading over to the bench to make it very clear she's done helping the specialist and maybe take a small nap before swimming. She makes a note to buy a travel pillow next time they visit the tuck shop.

It's hot. Hot enough to wish she'd worn white, and to drift off into sleep on the sun-baked bench almost as soon as she lies down. _You're not sleeping well_ , Delphine had commented at breakfast. Sarah laughed and asked if it was that obvious but she's been a walking corpse for days now and she can't exactly explain that it's Rachel – it's knowing she's awake on the other side of the wall, turning the pages of her book, just as likely to break the silence as Sarah is.

We're not talking because she read part of her book to me, Sarah keeps imagining herself saying to Delphine and Cosima. As if that's the reason at all.

She doesn't even _know_.

Rachel was just this bloody block of ice at breakfast the morning after and Sarah could barely stand the fluorescent lights, let alone saying _thanks_ or _I'm sorry_ or whatever other empty shit she could think of to maybe acknowledge the night before and it just felt better to not. To braid Afsheen's hair and stare at nothing through her sunglasses and blame it all on Delphine's cheap wine.

To pretend she still can't hear Rachel's soft voice with the full weight of those words.

"I think I'm still a bit sick," she tells Naomi on the way to swimming, to explain tripping over a tree root she clearly should have seen. Even her feet are betraying her these days.

She'd forgotten it was free swim until seeing half the camp at the lake; there's a glance to her clipboard to confirm it, and god she's doing such a shit job of this. Naomi's thrilled to see her brother again and Sarah can't even protest when they all ask to set up their towels near Paul's group, equal parts shy and eager to have their bathing suits on display. She's sure she'll hear about new developments on their crushes later tonight.

"You look terrible," Paul says as the kids run towards the water.

All the noodles and inflatables have been brought out of the shed and sit on the lake like a scattering of rainbow sprinkles; it's almost tempting to go join them, but she actually put on mascara today for no reason other than to make herself feel a bit better and she doesn't want to climb out of the lake with raccoon eyes.

"I look great," she tells him. He takes a seat beside her on the end of her towel and she sighs. "What, not gonna join your girlfriend?"

Alison's blowing a whistle at some kids from the dock, so Beth's no doubt somewhere nearby. Sarah glances down the stretch of sand and spies her sitting with some kid who looks equally miserable. Maybe it's the long-sleeved shirt in this weather.

Paul follows her gaze and then looks back with a surprising amount of remorse. "I did, actually. She told me to find somewhere else to be."

Sarah realizes the kid's crying, so it could be that, but Beth just seems to be holding her hand and watching kids splash each other in the shallow part.

"Kid drama?" she says, lifting her shoulders, and Paul nods.

"Yeah, maybe."

She digs her toes into the sand at the edge of her towel, wondering how different it would have been if he'd just talked to her last summer. If she'd said no but stuck around and they were friends and had each other's backs. Would she have been so lonely? Would she have even had it in her to say no in the first place?

Maybe she would've really liked the guy and the idea's sour in her mouth. Yeah, like the guy who's looking for anyone other than his girlfriend. But she kind of gets it, too.

"Alison scares the shit out of me," he admits as they both watch Alison berate a child for pushing someone off an inflatable tire.

Sarah laughs and the weightlessness of it hurts her chest.

"She just cares," she says. About the kids, about this camp. She's trying to preserve what she loved about coming here as a kid; it's admirable from a distance.

Paul shifts his gaze from Alison to Beth, his mouth pulling tight. "Yeah," he says. "I know."

It makes sense that he'd have picked up on that, but Sarah still finds herself a little surprised, wanting to tell him no, not like that, wanting to protect all three of them, but she knows she's the last person who should get involved. None of this is hers to talk about.

He lets it drop anyway, tunneling his foot through the sand towards hers, stopping just before their toes touch. "Our kids are all in love," he says. She pulls her feet away.

"They'll forget about it as soon as the summer's over," she replies.

They'll go home and get back to their lives and find new people to care about because nothing sticks forever. Cut their hair and say they've changed. Maybe they do; maybe a year's enough to be a different person, and they'll come back better.

What was it Felix said when she finally started to unpack? She pictures him sitting on her bed, sweater full of what he calls fashionable holes, twirling a shitty little God's Eye.

 _Well you certainly brought it all back with you_.

Sand pouring out of her shoes, burrs still stuck to her clothes. There were hairs in her hairbrush that weren't hers.

"She scares me a little too," Paul's saying, and when Sarah registers the words she realizes he's looking right at Rachel – Rachel in a white one-piece that would look clinical on anyone else but somehow gives her skin a warm glow and Sarah's chest constricts.

 _Come play mermaids with us!_ her kids are calling, surrounding her like fish, their faces bright. Rachel takes one expressionless look in Sarah's direction and follows them to the water.

"What's it like being stuck with her?" Paul asks. "Is she as much of a bitch as she seems?"

Her hand smacks his leg weakly, not having the energy to do more damage. "That's not something you can call a girl," she chastises. She's still stuck on the image of Rachel in her bathing suit.

He apologizes and tries to rephrase but she gets up and yanks the towel out from under him, heading over to tan near Tony.

"We missed you at last night's campfire," is all Tony says, his smile genuine, and she wishes again that he was the elevens counselor. At least she'd have someone to joke around with about their kids' burgeoning crushes.

She doesn't even mind when his boys come back later with weeds in their hands, dripping all over her back. In their excitement about finding fish eggs on the plants for their weekly scavenger hunt she almost forgets about Rachel completely.

/

Rachel's father first introduced her to Camus when she was eight; sat her down on her bed, revealed the book he'd been holding behind his back. She was angry about something – she forgets now, but remembers the feeling of it hot between her teeth – and he handed her a lolly so she'd listen (red, it stained her lips). _I bought this for your mummy_ , he said. She knew what myths were. She even knew about Sisyphus.

It wasn't the first book she thought to pack – Lolita came, and Nausea, and East of Eden, tucked neatly in the bottom of her suitcase. It was only the incessant chirping of her father's birds downstairs that compelled her to grab it from the shelf. She wasn't even sure she'd read it again.

It seems futile to place her books on the shelf in her counselor room, first wiping away a layer of dust, knowing she'll only be removing them in seven weeks anyway. But it brings her a sense of peace to see the titles lined up together; a small bit of home, whatever that means to her now. They stay there until lights out, when she eyes them from her bed for a full two minutes before sweeping them all back into her suitcase. Tucked under the bed. Completely out of sight.

(What incited her father to introduce it to her _then_?)

She was the witch again as her children ran through the forest after the campfire. Chase us, they pleaded. She didn't run but they squealed anyway.

(Her mother didn't want it. She threw it on the ground.)

She can hear them breathing in their sleep; hear the snore through the wall behind her headboard. There's a chip in the wood of her side table and she runs her thumb across it, again, and again, wanting to smooth it out.

It's early in the morning when she rises – before the bugle, the sun just creeping up over the lake. She wonders if Beth is out jogging, having caught sight of her on the weekend, loose bits of her bun falling in her face. She wonders if Sarah managed to get to sleep. (She doesn't.) (Does she?) She aims to fall back asleep for whatever time she has left but when the bugle sounds her eyes are still open, fixed on the book on her bedside table.

She considers, rousing her girls, asking to trade her arts and crafts block with Alison's tennis; it would involve talking to Alison and throwing Sarah under the bus, and she's only surprised to find herself afraid of doing one of those.

"We're doing paper mache," Raniyah tells her as they clean up their table after breakfast.

"Making what?" Rachel asks. She remembers doing it back in primary school, but there was always some sort of end goal – some lumpy shape to paint and take home.

The girls all seem thrown by the question as if only interested in the messy part of the craft until Julisa finally says, "puppets! We're making heads for our puppets."

It's something to do with their drama project, which has something to do with the talent show, which all seems conflated enough to have everyone even more excited than usual to head to the arts and crafts cabin. Rachel tells herself this is why she doesn't ask Alison to switch.

She makes a point to get there early, if just to scope it out and find herself a seat away from any chance to get messy. Her girls fill a table of their own and it's chaotic and relieving in comparison to sharing the art block with Alison – and she tucks herself away at a back table to get far away from the corner where Alison lectured her, running her fingers over the grooves and carvings on the worn-down wooden tabletop. There are a few initials, a few drawings. Someone's carved a curse word but done their best to cross it out.

FK indeed, Rachel thinks, as Sarah's brood comes tumbling through the door.

"Welcome!" The specialist grins. "We're just about to get started!"

Sarah at least seems equally thrown by her teeth-baring smile so early in the morning. Rachel wishes she'd had a second coffee before leaving the mess hall.

Sarah's girls saunter, take seats at the table like picking friends. Rachel's girls follow their actions with earnest faces and she wishes they didn't worship so openly – it makes it too easy to see the eleven year-olds as more than just Sarah's unruly campers.

The paste and newspaper strips are set out almost as soon as all the girls are seated, and Rachel expects chaos but doesn't expect Sarah to come hover near her table as if pointedly _not_ sitting down with her.

She waits for her to say _Thursday night_.

She waits for her to say anything.

"You'll get a backache if you stay standing like that," Rachel finds herself saying in their silence, nudging over a chair.

Sarah stares at it for a moment before tugging it a little closer and finally sitting down, and she's far enough away to not actually be at the table but Rachel finds her space invaded all the same. Sarah pulls a coffee out of nowhere. Rachel considers kicking the chair.

"They're making puppets," she says when she catches Sarah frowning in confusion at the goopy mess on the tables.

It's the last thing she says for a while, but it at least makes Sarah look at her, at least inspires eye contact, and Rachel can't stand it.

(Sarah's exhausted. Sarah looks… Well. Rachel's heard her up at night.)

They both go back to watching their kids dunk strips of newspaper in the vomit-like paste, pulling them through their fingers to remove the excess, smoothing them over semi-inflated balloons. There's a yeasty smell in the air that Rachel wasn't expecting and it stabs her with a sort of nostalgia for the classroom she loved so dearly as a child – the yellow walls and paper garlands and the soft way the teacher said her name.

She shuts her eyes and lets herself feel seven again; lets herself remember England, remember her family intact and not torn apart all jagged by the bitter cold of Canada.

Her mother loved the lumpy piñata she brought home before Easter. They hung it up in a doorway and her mother said it was too beautiful to destroy. Rachel just wanted the sweets inside; her mother was so _mad_ when she found it dissected in the back garden. (Did her mother cry? Or is she confusing it with Canada?)

"I'd be sick if I had to touch that," Sarah says, stirring Rachel from her reminiscing.

She's chancing a small smile when Rachel opens her eyes.

"What, you never did it back in school?" Rachel asks. The girls are covered in paste up to their elbows, peeling a little where it's dried. The specialist grins on.

Sarah shrugs and says, "Never really stuck around anywhere long enough to do any of the fun stuff."

It's said with a practiced ease, like she's so used to putting it on display it doesn't even strike her as hers anymore. Rachel doesn't know what to do but nod and look away as Sarah fiddles with the blue and black bracelet around her wrist.

The girls are filling the room with their squeals and chatter anyway, enough of a distraction for the both of them, surely all ready for a dunk in the lake after this. It's a shame they don't go swimming until after lunch. Rachel wonders if she can run them all through the shower in fifteen minutes but accepts that they'll be peeling paste off their hands and arms all through the meal.

Sarah sips her coffee quietly, eyeing the specialist as if challenging her to say something about the rule-breaking possession.

Emily, Rachel thinks her name is. The one too busy running her hands all over the girls' balloons to ensure they're smoothing it down correctly. If Rachel could do this at seven they can manage at ten and eleven. It's going to look terrible anyway, she nearly tells Sarah.

She holds her tongue as she glances over, Sarah sitting with arms crossed and the only color to her face a slight sunburn.

(Sisyphus rolls the rock to the top of the mountain; it rolls back down. She thinks of him following its path to the bottom – the brief freedom of aching arms and blistered palms. The hour of consciousness, Camus called it.)

Sarah's watching her the next time she looks.

Hair a dark tangle of curls. Mouth held soft.

"D'you ever miss England?" Sarah asks as she looks to Rachel's painted nails.

Rachel knows there's a chip in the silver of her index finger and tries to tuck it away without making it obvious. Sarah lifts her shoulders like she was just making light conversation but Rachel knows, instinctively, it's more than that.

She averts her gaze to the scarred tabletop. "I don't think about it, really."

Sarah nods, maybe the same or maybe motioning that she understands. It was a long time ago; they were practically different people. If Rachel ever ran into the child she left behind in Cambridge…

( _You cut your hair because there was no one to braid it. It's better this way_.)

She's an adult. There's no need to look back.

"One week down," Sarah says as they're helping the girls clean up, scrubbing hard at a patch of dried paste. She has a child at her elbow and they eye her with slight uncertainty.

Rachel takes a wet paper towel, moving Sarah's hand aside to set it on the dry glob. "Just let it sit for a little," she says. "It'll come up with no work after."

Messes she can handle. Paste under her nails, fine. She blanches when Sarah gives her an appreciative smile.

"Done this before?" Sarah asks lightly, quietly, moving around Rachel to wet another paper towel at the sink. There's a brief second of contact as Sarah steadies herself against Rachel's waist and her fingertips are fire through the fabric.

Rachel swallows hard and goes to croak out a reply but by the time she finds her voice Sarah's already moved on, laughing by the paint-stained sink with one of her kids.

/

Later, during quiet hour, Rachel settles in on one of the porch benches with a book, her girls split between their bunks and the shaded parts of the grass. A few of them finally decided to write home and Sierra wanted to shower, the rest opting instead to bring cards and art supplies out to the lawn despite the heat, and Rachel for once doesn't mind the bubbly sounds of their conversations. If she forgets the words it almost sounds like running water.

It's a couple degrees cooler on the porch, at least. Out of the sun Rachel feels like she can actually breathe.

She'd been stuck near Sarah again at lunch, neither of them talking and both feigning interest in their girls to not have to acknowledge their proximity, but even with the couple kids and empty bench separating them Rachel could still somehow _feel_ her. The heat of her; the tangible presence. She'd shredded her napkin to bits before realizing and even then it wasn't enough.

 _What were you expecting_ , she asks herself. The book is open in her lap but she's staring out at a picnic table.

It isn't as if Sarah would slide her way down the bench and say the words, say _Thursday night_ like it was real, asking more of Rachel than Rachel can give. No. Sarah can barely look at her.

And isn't it what she wanted? The girl's been a pain in her side since the first dirty look, somehow always _there_ when she shouldn't be, poking and prodding, just asking to be bit. If Rachel's wanted anything it's been to rid herself of Sarah.

She tightens her grip on the book as Evie bumbles out the screen door, a torn sheet of paper in her hand. Maybe it will at least look like Rachel's been reading.

Evie's pouting, her hair up in a ponytail that Rachel insisted upon this morning, not wanting to see hair in her mouth ever again. She drops herself down on the bench at Rachel's side and thrusts the paper in her face, letting out a dramatic sigh.

"I can't write," she grumbles.

It takes a second for Rachel's eyes to focus with the paper so close but when they do she sees a series of scrawled sentences amongst scratched out words, barely placed in the lines. Evie gives the sheet a good shake for emphasis.

"Penmanship?" Rachel guesses, recoiling slightly as Evie scowls. "The, ah, content then?"

"It just all sounds stupid," Evie says, and brings her knees to her chest.

She seems small like this – just a child, and Rachel supposes she is, but in the past week and a bit her girls have come to seem more like fully-formed humans and she's surprised to find that she'd forgotten. (Of course, she herself was fully-formed at ten, perfectly assimilated to the adult world. Surely her girls are capable of the same.)

"I'm sure it doesn't," she says, wanting to get back to pretending to read and staring off in the distance, sighing when Evie smacks her with the paper to get her to read it.

She relents, taking in the words she can make out, piecing together the general sentiment. A letter to parents who love her dearly; who want to know she's enjoying herself, she's eating okay, she's making friends.

(Rachel wrote her father a letter once; she was eleven and she promptly hurled it into the fireplace.)

"What would you like to tell them?" Rachel asks.

The paper lowers slightly, brushing her arm. Evie frowns and stares at her letter and then tucks her knees under her chin.

"I don't know," she says, jaw moving strangely over her knee. "That I'm having fun, I guess."

"Are you?" Rachel asks.

"Yeah."

"What parts are you enjoying?"

"Art. Swimming. When we get to play our game."

"When I'm the witch?"

Evie smiles and lifts her head. "Yeah. And when we make smores at the campfire, and doing karaoke."

"Write that, then," Rachel tells her, pushing her thumb deeper in the crease of her book as if she might actually read it now. Somehow Camus just isn't doing it for her today.

Evie takes her paper back and hops off the bench, the worry smoothed out of her face, slipping back inside the screen door with a little _thank-you_. There's a burst of chatter from inside that dies down when someone climbs onto a bunk and the shower finally turns off and Rachel forces herself to read at least a page.

She thought she'd spend all her free time reading, when she was packing; pictured lounging by the lake with a paperback, the kids nonexistent and not a bug in sight. She'd never been to camp before but it seemed like the kind of place that could be marginally enjoyable in its quiet moments and when she wasn't angrily avoiding her father she even, a couple times, caught herself looking forward to it.

In her daydreams there weren't any other counselors. She should have known – she should have remembered how horrible it is to be with anyone her own age and known, instinctively, that Sarah was a possibility. (How could she? How could she even have _guessed_?)

It isn't as if school passed without incident; that even a part of her thought camp would be different has her stomach tightening.

( _What could you possibly know about what's good for me_ , she'd tossed at her father the night he first brought it up. He only blinked at her, blinked those stupid, unbearably large eyes as if she was the one with weapon.)

She startles as the screen door opens on the other side of the porch, not quite jumping but still hating herself for reacting all the same.

It had been too quiet even with her kids chatting away on the grass but she wishes for anything else, even silence, when Sarah steps out onto the creaky planks of wood, her hair wet and the soft, dark tendrils dripping down her shirt.

She doesn't seem surprised to see Rachel but also approaches as if this wasn't her intention at all, hands nervously picking at the hem of her shirt as she leans against the column a few feet from Rachel. There's a quick glance to the book in Rachel's grip and then down at the porch and Rachel forces herself to think about anything but last Thursday.

"Must be good if you're still reading it," Sarah says, a hand coming up to brush back her hair.

Tiny droplets land on the railing beside her, disappearing quickly into the wood. Rachel blinks and looks down at the open page. _What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack_ …

"I keep restarting it," she finds herself saying. "I keep-"

Looking for an answer, for something she should have found nine years ago, maybe, or that doesn't exist at all, or-

Sarah nods, a small motion. She's less pale under her sunburnt cheeks, from the heat or just having showered or eating something substantial at lunch. (Rachel was secretly relieved to see her with a burger, after days of coffee and some token attempt at food.)

"That bit you-" Sarah starts, then presses her lips together, uncertain, before finally trying again. "That bit you shared with me, before."

Rachel holds her breath and moves her chin a fraction of an inch in what's supposed to be a nod but is still somehow enough for Sarah to continue.

"I just keep thinking about it," she says, and reaches behind her to curl a hand around the edge of the railing.

 _Are we finally talking about this_ , Rachel wants to ask, wants to stand up to match her in height, to at least do something other than sit here with her ankles crossed and wait for her chest to cave in on itself.

But Sarah shakes her head and then turns to watch the kids play in the grass, card games abandoned for cartwheels even in the heat with a tenacity that Rachel admires.

"If you ever want to borrow it, to read it," Rachel hears herself offering, motioning with the open book.

Her father's annotations are on display in the margins for anyone to see and she hates his handwriting and wonders and knows why she hasn't already erased it. Of course he'd find significance in the lines that struck her too.

Sarah turns back around slowly, the slightest awe in her eyes that puts something heavy in Rachel's stomach.

"I don't think I'd understand it," she says, ducking her head and running a hand through her wet curling hair in a fluid movement.

Rachel considers it for a second and then says, quietly, "I don't know, I think you might surprise yourself."

One of Sarah's girls picks this moment to come barreling out of the cabin, screaming her name with another loudly apologetic girl on her heels. Sarah rolls her eyes and heads over to deal with it but Rachel sticks on the glimpse of something soft she'd seen only a minute before, a shift in her gaze, that lingers even after Sarah's gone.

/

Sarah lets her kids sit wherever the hell they want for movie night, paying attention long enough to note where they scatter and then joining Cosima and Delphine with their brood of tiny urchins.

They're strategically far enough away from Beth to not attract Alison's attention but also not too close to Paul, who gives Sarah a quick glance before returning to his conversation with Tony and seems to understand she'd rather eat glass than have him come over. He has a couple of her girls in with his boys, Naomi and Raya and a shy Ava, the three of them laughing with Naomi's brother, looking happy enough for Sarah to not be concerned. She's sure they could hold their own if any of the boys started to bother them.

It's a calmer night than usual; she doesn't know if it's the heat or just that they're all finally settling into the routine, but even the din of everyone together doesn't have the same frantic edge to it that she's come to expect and she doesn't have to keep scanning the room to keep an eye on things.

(She knows where Beth is, anyway. Near the front, leaning against a shelving unit, listening to Alison go on and on about something clearly not as exciting as Alison's making it out to be.)

"I actually really like Toy Story," Cosima says, hand intertwined with Delphine's on the floor between them.

Sarah looks up from the blonde hair she's been braiding, one of Delphine's sixes having asked the moment she sat down. The hair's almost too thin for a French braid but she's managing.

"You just like Bo Peep," she says, grinning.

Cosima's eyes widen and she glances to Delphine before giving Sarah a dirty look.

"It was a _dream_ ," she hisses.

Delphine glances between them and then laughs, putting the pieces together with Sarah's smug expression.

"You know," Sarah says, innocently returning to the braid, "Bo _does_ seem to resemble a certain hot, French girlfriend of yours, if you think about about it…"

She expects the smack, Cosima reaching around Delphine to do so, but it still jars her body a little and she nearly loses her grip on one of the strands of the braid. If the entire thing unraveled she would have slapped the _shit_ out of Cosima, even with all these little kids around them.

Delphine seems ready to say something to mediate just as the lights dim, one of the lifeguards finally getting the projector going. A cheer rises up through the crowd. Paul and Tony sit down, joining their boys, and Sarah finds herself watching Beth do the same, hand bumping Alison's as they sink to the floor in unison. She half hopes Paul didn't see it and half hates herself for caring.

The kid in front of her wiggles back until she's sitting in her lap, almost too close to finish the end of the braid but with just enough space for Sarah to tie it off and hand the tail of it to her with a whispered _there, just like Elsa_. The girl tilts her head back to smile at her, snuggling in for the movie.

Man, Delphine and Cosima have it easy. The smallest slice of attention and their kids worship them. Sarah looked at Quinn wrong this morning and had to duck to avoid a hairbrush.

(It's been a little better, but with Daniela now fighting back at Raya's insistence it's more like playing referee in a knife fight. She mostly has to figure out how to dodge and when it's absolutely necessary for her to step in.)

"I think Chloe likes you," Delphine whispers in her ear, smiling down at the girl in Sarah's lap.

Sarah crinkles her nose but smiles back. "They'd like anyone who braided their hair."

"Oh, not Alison," Delphine replies and Sarah tries to muffle her laugh.

Alison braiding hair would probably be all hard tugs and admonishments, her nails sharp as razors against their soft scalps. Sarah cringes at the thought and smoothes her hand over the top of Chloe's head.

She does her best to focus on the heat and weight of the body in her lap and not on the movie playing out on the screen, really not feeling tonight's selection. Maybe it has to do with seeing all these movies years after everyone else but she never quite got the hype. A bunch of toys are actually alive and willingly obey their sheriff? Some evil boy has a go at vivisection?

She watched it a few times for Felix when he was younger, pretending to worry as much as he did when they had to find their way to the moving van. But mostly she just quietly hated that Andy's whole life wasn't traveling with him in a trash bag, no social worker eyeing him through the rearview mirror, getting to drive to his new home without a thick knot of dread in his stomach.

"I'm gonna go pee," she tells Delphine after Chloe slides back onto the floor, and dips out of the rec hall as fast as she can manage.

The temperature's dropped to something comfortable, finally, cooling her skin as she leans against a nearby tree. It might rain, actually – she can smell static, the trees all bristling in a slight evening breeze, something coming up from the lake. Maybe if a storm hits they won't have to go kayaking tomorrow. She crosses her fingers against her thigh.

"You okay, girl?"

She jumps as a body comes out of the shadows beside the rec hall but eases a little as she sees it's Tony, zipping up his fly.

"Not a big Disney person," she tells him with a shrug, pushing off the tree so she doesn't look as pathetic.

He shrugs as well, meeting her halfway in the small yellow glow of one of the porch lights.

"Not everyone is. Maybe you could suggest something for next time, something you'd actually enjoy?" His smile would look slimy on anyone else but on him it's comforting.

She chuckles. "Kinda more into bad horror flicks. Not that camp-appropriate."

"Shit, now that's my kind of girl," he says with a grin, a hand touching her arm.

It's brief and cheeky, and she likes the way he looks at her after, like he's daring her to call him out. She shakes her head with a smile, wishing again that it'd been him instead of Paul. For so many things.

"Are you coming out tonight?" he asks. "Fire pit? Krystal's bringing some fruity shit."

Of course she is, Sarah thinks. There isn't a girly drink Krystal doesn't love. Sarah almost wishes she lived close enough to Krystal to go drinking with her on a regular basis, trying all the sugary crap she's always been too embarrassed to buy on her own. Krystal might not even be too bad to have around for a hangover. She seems like she'd know a few cures.

"Kinda thought I'd just go to bed," she tells Tony, trying to sound regretful. "You know, still being a little sick."

He looks genuinely disappointed but also concerned enough about her wellbeing to not try to sway her and she half regrets using the easy excuse. But it's not like she's going to tell him she can't come because she doesn't want to drunkenly return to her cabin after. (To find out Rachel waited up for her. To find out Rachel didn't.)

"It's hitting you pretty hard then, huh?" he says, rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Uh," she says, "yeah, you know, body's not used to being around all these little germ factories."

Her body's not used to being around _Rachel_ , and she hates herself for even thinking it.

"Well," Tony says.

She gives him a helpless, self-deprecating smile, the one she saves for boys when she needs to slip through the fingers of their conversation.

"Want me to walk you back in?" he offers, gesturing towards the door.

They've probably missed enough of the movie at this point for her to be able to convince herself she hasn't been following the plot. It's so much easier to watch when it's all disjointed scenes and too bright colors.

He holds out his arm like a goddamn gentleman and she accepts, smiling, enjoying just getting to be another girl around him. Not Paul's mistake. Not Beth's enemy. Just a girl with a boy.

Cosima looks up with slight concern as Sarah rejoins them, slipping into her spot beside Delphine without disturbing the stretched out kids around her. She waves a hand at Cosima to tell her it's nothing, just needed air, just got bored, something easy, and Cosima relents, letting Sarah inch close enough to Delphine to focus solely on the spiced floral scent of her perfume, hopefully not even going to bring it up later.

She can't even tell what's happening on the screen.

It feels good, for a moment. For a second before her head turns involuntarily and she catches sight of Rachel, face unguarded as she watches the movie, shrouded in something sad.

And then Sarah drops her head into her hands and rubs her eyes, letting out a silent groan, wishing she hadn't had to see such a human expression on Rachel, her chest aching as it burns itself into her vision. She'll be seeing it on repeat in her dreams tonight, a new face to the nightmarish mix from last Thursday and every terrible conversation she's imagined since.

Rachel's sad eyes. Rachel glancing up from her book. Rachel's sneer. Rachel reading. Soft and harsh and haunting and cruel – she tastes blood in her mouth every morning, and in the first seconds after waking she always wonders if it's hers or Rachel's.

/

It's cool enough to justify a sweatshirt when Sarah slips out after her girls are asleep, a baggy grey university one she nicked from some guy she's since forgotten. The lining is soft and she relishes getting to stick her hands in the pocket, fingers cradling the pack of smokes, pointedly _not_ thinking about Rachel as she plods through the forest.

She doesn't mean to run into Beth again. (Mostly. Of course she knew Beth would be at the lake, but mostly she let herself forget.)

She doesn't mean to fumble with the cigarette as she's lighting it, nearly dropping it in the sand, her hands shaking for some reason as Beth watches her.

 _I'll go_ , she silently offers, perched for flight with sand in her shoes, but Beth shakes her head, subtle, and there's enough space for the both of them on the boathouse dock. Sarah sits beside her and tries not to blow smoke in her face. Beth… sits.

The water trembles slightly with the breeze, a sure sign of rain on its way; there's a snap to the air that Sarah can't figure out if she likes or not and it's whisked a dampness into the wood under her bare thighs. At the very least it's keeping the mosquitoes at bay, hovering in a thin cloud over the middle of the lake.

Beth's breathing is audible tonight, shifting the fabric of a grey Henley Sarah's fairly certain she's seen on Alison before, which still doesn't tell her who actually owns it. Maybe they're both wearing stolen tops tonight. Or maybe it's some coded admission for the dark only, and Sarah shouldn't be here putting the facts together with all their blurry edges.

She focuses on the pull of smoke in her chest and watches it curl into nothing in front of her.

 _Are you even mad at me_ , she doesn't ask. Knowing wouldn't change anything.

 _Listen_ \- she goes to say, but she hears it in Paul's voice and she has nothing to follow it anyway. Just the need to fill the silence, to have Beth acknowledge her in some small way. It would be so much easier if Beth could just slap her.

She told Felix about their last conversation, about telling her about Vic. He got it in a way she didn't want him to and asked how she felt and she said okay, for having to be that girl again, even for a split second. He asked if she told Beth because she knew Beth wouldn't spread it around, and that might have been why but mostly, she told him, it was because she felt like she'd taken too much from Beth already and just had to give her _something_. Something that hurt in the same awful way.

Beth glances at her now like she knows what she's thinking about, her eyes cold in a forgiving way. In an absent way.

For a second Sarah feels like reaching out and taking her hand to see if she's even there at all or if she's just an apparition in the dead of night but then something eases in Beth's face, a slight softening, and Sarah brings the cigarette to her mouth again to have something to do with her hands.

"Why'd you take Rachel's cigarettes," Beth asks.

Sarah exhales. The smoke hovers like a ghost between them.

"I don't know," she says. "Because she let me."

Beth nods and hair falls in her eyes, all barely contained by the loose bun at the back of her head. She doesn't move to fix it and Sarah can't bear to look at it cutting her pale skin so she forces herself to stare at the water under her feet like there's anything more to it than darkness.

God, not even the stars are out tonight.

They sit in absolute silence until Sarah's cigarette burns down to the filter, and she grinds it out against the dock and Beth watches and then rises and says goodbye as she's already going, just a blur amongst the trees. Sarah wonders if she'll ever be the first to leave.

She thinks about Beth as she crawls into bed after, the sheets cool against her legs; thinks about the last time she saw her smile and how much of a shell it is compared to even a year ago.

In the dark of her room she can almost conjure up an imaginary Beth in the corner, just beside the dresser, standing with her arms crossed and watching Sarah with that usual mix of detachment and disappointment. _What happened to you_ , she pictures herself asking, head still on the pillow, watching Beth in return. Beth would lift her shoulders and shake her head, and there'd be a quirk of her lips that should be a smile but just _isn't_ on Beth, and in the static texture of the darkness Sarah would almost believe she could touch her, just reach out and brush her fingers against her skin.

 _I didn't know you when I slept with Paul. I'm sorry._

 _Sarah, you don't know me now_.

"Sarah?"

Her foot kicks involuntarily under her blanket and as her eyes adjust she sees a kid in the crack of her doorway, nearly swallowed whole by the shadows.

The door opens a little more and it's Naomi, hair still damp from her shower earlier, hesitantly taking a step into the room. Sarah rubs some sleep out of her eyes and motions for her to come closer.

"What's up?" she asks, quiet, to not wake the other girls.

It has to be pretty late; she's not going to turn to check her phone, but her body feels heavy in a way that tells her she's at least been sleeping for a little while and it wasn't exactly early when she headed down to the lake.

Naomi tucks her hair behind her ear, creeping forward until she hits Sarah's bed, not sitting down until Sarah pats the blanket.

"I want to go home," she says, and Sarah can hear the tears she's trying to hold back.

Sarah half props herself up on an elbow to look a little more present in this conversation. "Are you missing your family?"

Naomi nods and puts a hand over her face, saying tearfully, "and my bed, and my dog, and getting to be in my kitchen in the morning…"

There's a beat before she's really crying, but her shoulders tremble and Sarah can barely get herself to a sitting position in time to give her a hug. Naomi sinks into her chest like this was all she really needed, some form of human contact; Sarah strokes her damp hair and tells her it's okay to miss all this, it's okay to be sad.

"We can call home in the morning," Sarah says, rubbing her back. "Maybe see if your brother can join us for breakfast. You're lucky to have him here, you know. Every time I get sad about anything I just want to be with my brother."

Naomi wipes her cheeks, nodding, and sits up enough to be able to see her. "Is he your best friend? Nate's my best friend."

"He is," Sarah says, lips curling in a little smile.

"Is your sister too?" Naomi asks and looks at her earnestly, her eyes still glassy.

Sarah exhales. "Well you know, I don't exactly know her. She grew up really far away and I haven't had the chance to get to know her that well. She likes candy, though. And kids. She'd like working with you guys."

Naomi considers this for a minute and runs her fingers along Sarah's, a chill to her touch.

"Did your mom give you up?" she asks quietly. "When you were babies?"

Her finger lands in a groove between Sarah's knuckles and she presses down against the skin. Sarah wonders if she can feel the tiny scar there, where it split from trying to fight back, her hands too small to do much damage.

"She couldn't take care of us," she replies. Her voice rasps and she blames it on having been asleep.

Naomi's face softens in concern. "So she gave you to two different homes?"

Not at first, Sarah's learned, but even with babies people tend to only want one, especially with a pair that only knew how to cry.

"That's just how the system works sometimes," she tells her, reaching out to wipe away a tear streak.

"I'd be really sad if they separated me and Nate," Naomi says, frowning in a way that says she's going to be thinking about this for a while, and Sarah wishes she had a life that wouldn't make her kids worry. "Sometimes… sometimes I can feel him thinking, even in a different room, and I know what he's thinking about without him telling me. Like his head is inside my head."

Sarah nods and smoothes down a wrinkle in Naomi's pyjama top, trying not to think about Helena. "Twins can have a very special connection, sometimes. It's a deep bond."

"I came out first, you know," Naomi tells her. "They cut my mom open because Nate was struggling, but I was right there, and I was fine."

There's a slight guilt to the way she says it and Sarah wants to tell her nothing's her fault, there's no way she had control over any of that, but Naomi just lifts her shoulders and lets them fall and it's as if she's accepted it a long time ago. That she came out first and she was fine.

"I think I'm okay to go back to bed now," she says, giving Sarah a decisive nod and then sliding off the bed, any evidence that she'd been crying eaten up by the dark.

"Yeah?" Sarah says. "We can chat a little longer, if you need."

"It's okay, I'm good to go sleep," Naomi assures her.

She lets Sarah hug her and wish her sweet dreams before she goes, and at the doorway she makes sure they can still call her mom in the morning, but as soon as she's in bed she doesn't stir once and in the quiet Sarah half convinces herself the entire thing was some dream to make her feel better about being such a shitty counselor these past few days. It would be just like her subconscious to seek out a situation to fluff her ego. If it can do it while also dredging up the past, all the better.

It's a small consolation, being forced to think about her sister, but when she finally does get to sleep it's the first time in a while her dreams are perforated with anything other than Rachel. And in the morning, she swears it was almost a rest.

/

The rain starts at some point in the night, easing up a little to let the morning bugle be heard but carrying on full force after as if determined to swallow up the day. The upside is it's given Rachel a chance to wear one of her long-sleeved shirts, a soft olive green top that pairs nicely with her mood, the air almost chilly even in the cabin.

Her girls seem to be of the same line of thinking – nearly all of them opt for sweatshirts or long sleeves, Marlow and Raniyah even sporting pants. They have ponchos and raincoats with them as well, thankfully adhering to the packing lists, making it a little easier to travel in the downpour, giving them the appearance of small ladybugs and frogs and cheerful ducks with their matching rain boots. (If Rachel had known raingear came in anything other than drab she might have thought to bring more than an umbrella and a light jacket she's saving for a hurricane.)

It's a sea of oddly colorful raincoats when they get to the mess hall, everyone either dripping or in the process of drying off as they shout their conversations at each other. It might be a combination of the rain drumming on the roof or knowing they'll be trapped inside all day but everyone seems a little more erratic, a little louder than usual, each table apparently trying to drown out the rest.

This would not be the day to have a hangover.

Rachel glances at Sarah just in case, but Sarah has a bowl of oatmeal with her coffee today and looks to be somewhat well-rested, in some conversation with Madeleine that has a soft smile on her face.

"What are we doing instead of soccer today?" Sierra asks, drawing her attention away from the other half of the table.

Rachel asked the same thing at the staff meeting this morning, one of the only counselors there in anything other than pyjamas and the only one who managed to miss six of the seven days of orientation week. It was a quick meeting; updated schedules were handed out while the director warned them of a new patch of poison ivy near the tennis courts, and Paul and Tony asked if they could still do some sport activity if there wasn't any lightening.

"I'm afraid we're stuck inside, some dance activity with the nine year-olds," she tells Sierra as she taps some crumbs off her toast.

And drama with Alison's group, and games in the mess hall later with the nine year-old boys and seven year-old girls. Rainy days are apparently a hodgepodge of _whatever we can do inside_. The plus side is she did manage to snag her group some time in the arts and crafts cabin later, for the counselor-led activity, to do something she's yet to figure out. But it beats being stuck in their cabin.

Sierra makes the face that Rachel had wanted to when she got her schedule.

"Last year when it rained we played Twister for like, an hour," Isabella C. says, frowning at Clementine who nods emphatically.

Rachel tries to hide a smile. "Well that's on the schedule for this afternoon, unfortunately. But I'm sure there will be some other games to choose from."

"We played Monopoly too," Clementine says as she chases scrambled egg around her plate. "Beth beat _everyone_. Like, she owned the _entire board_."

It makes sense that her returning girls would have been with Beth last summer, but it hadn't exactly occurred to Rachel until now. Part of her wants to ask what that was like, being with Beth, if she was just as numb and withdrawn as she seems to be now, but she knows that would be inappropriate. Mostly she tries to wrap her head around the image of Beth having enough interest in a board game to win it.

She goes to sneak a glance at Beth to see how she is with her current group of kids, but Alison nearly catches her looking and she'd rather not be on the receiving end of a scathing look so early in the morning.

"Do you like board games, Rachel?" Sahar asks, her voice still sleep-coated, frog raincoat half falling off her shoulders.

Rachel wants to reach out and brush back the mess of dark hair that's sticking out the frog hood or maybe take off the raincoat entirely, let it dry on the bench beside her like most of her girls, but she refrains from doing anything but giving her a small smile in return.

"I've enjoyed myself playing a couple, yes," she says, and Sahar smiles back.

When her family was still intact she'd insist on The Game of Life, wanting to collect a carful of little pink daughters and maybe a son and be a doctor and the first to the end and watch the stretch of life grow more fruitful each turn. She'd play alone, sometimes; cheat so she got everything she wanted, even naming her children, lonely in a way she couldn't describe.

Her parents always chose Scrabble. Or Boggle. Or anything to exercise their minds, they said, and she agreed, she learned to agree, trying to find joy in the first time she beat her mother's score. And then her father's. And she wasn't sure if they were supposed to be having fun after all.

Sahar tilts her head and watches her for a moment, as if maybe she can see the small girl and the Scrabble board. Spelling out i-s-o-l-a-t-e. Spelling out p-l-e-a-s-e. (She's thinking of Canada again. She bites down hard on her cheek.) And then it's gone and Sahar's back to her cereal, the marshmallows bloated in the greying milk, and Rachel has blood in her mouth that stains the rim of her coffee cup.

She thinks of red lipstick. (She thinks of her mother.)

"I bet you'd be good at Twister," Isabella C. says, and Raniyah adds, "Beth hated it."

Rachel clasps her hands together, forcing a smile onto her lips. "Well, we'll see this afternoon then, won't we?"

It's always been a game for birthday parties, for little girls in their socks with bows in their hair. It's a game of flexibility and as she carefully turns to sneak a look at Beth she knows, blinking at her rigid form, this is why it wasn't for Beth. (She bets Sarah's good at it. And then she presses her fingertips against her cheek, right where she bit down.)

The girls go back to their breakfast and Rachel goes back to trying to de-crumb her toast and it's almost as if the conversation never happened, lost to the pounding of the rain on the roof above them. But Rachel keeps finding herself thinking of it later – of the girls with their raincoats, and of Beth as anything other than the solemn frame she is now. Like some lost puzzle piece that still has no image to go with it.

/

It turns out Beth has about as much enthusiasm for dance as Rachel does: the two of them have been sitting on the bench "observing" since the specialist turned on some upbeat music that Alison would no doubt enjoy and started to break down the routine, both deciding their help is clearly not needed.

Their kids are pretty evenly matched in terms of talent, but most of them seem to be enjoying it, Sahar once again having no difficulties in adapting with her limp. Of course most of them are focused on watching themselves in the long stretch of mirror that breaks up the wood paneling, but at least they're in the general area of moves they're supposed to be doing. Rachel feels confident enough in the specialist's leadership skills to pay minimal attention.

"We haven't met officially," Beth had said to her upon them all shedding their raingear when they first stumbled into the rec hall, extending her hand in a surprisingly firm handshake. "I'm Beth. Childs. I'm sure you've seen me around."

Rachel had echoed her own name with the same even tone, taken aback by the assertiveness of the move and wondering if in another life they might have been associates or even some type of friends. She briefly imagined having known her in high school, the two of them roaming the halls together in sharply clicking heels, but then decided Beth most likely would have found herself someone like Paul in whatever universe and would still be untouchably sad.

She's thinking about it again while sitting beside her on the bench, close enough to reach out and brush her hand against Beth's knee if she so pleased. Rachel sat down first so Beth was the one who chose to leave so little space between them and Rachel still doesn't know what to make of that. Is she really not a threat? Is this some obvious statement?

Really Beth's just sitting with her chin in her hand, elbow resting on her knee, hair clipped out of her face and still damp from the rain. Not at all concerned with Rachel's presence beside her.

Rachel pictures them in a classroom somewhere, their desks touching and easily the smartest two in the class. She's sure Beth's handwriting is neat and boxy, and can see her taking organized notes in a plain, lined notebook. They wouldn't talk. Beth would just sit there and draw nothing in the margins, and Rachel would wonder if she'd missed something when Beth's notes were longer and more in-depth, and it'd be another missed connection Rachel would lament upon graduating. God, does she have enough of those.

"I think Abby has two left feet," Beth says quietly, face turned slightly in Rachel's direction, motioning to one of her kids who's stumbling through the choreography.

Rachel smiles lightly and nods, and then not wanting the conversation to die adds, "I'm not sure I'd be much better."

It pulls Beth's lips out into something _almost_ like a smile, and Rachel considers it a small victory.

But then the silence falls again and they're back to not really watching their kids laugh and muck up the moves and clutch their friends as they bump into them, the room filled with the pounding music and a curtain of rain through the windows. Beth seems content to just sit; to watch her girls and the rain, and every so often look over at Rachel without making any excuses for her outright observation.

If it were anyone else Rachel might mind the feeling of eyes on her skin, but Beth does it in such a way it feels like nothing at all. A slight breeze, maybe. The ghost of something brushing by.

They speak one more time just as Beth's group is leaving – Beth slips on her navy blue rain jacket and gives Rachel a slight nod, saying, _nice to finally meet you, Rachel_ , and it's quiet enough that Rachel nearly misses it, but she holds onto the words as Beth's group filters out and Alison's filters in and the chaos settles into a familiar wall of noise she can easily tune out. Maybe Beth's heard things about her and maybe she hasn't (although considering her last run-in with Alison, Beth probably has) but it feels like Beth waited to make a judgment of her own, and Rachel passed whatever test Beth had given her.

It's enough to tolerate the sour look Alison fixes her with as their girls are split into groups for improv and all throughout the inane scenes they're forced to watch and applaud. Enough to ignore the tiny sounds of disapproval Alison makes as Rachel sits down, back on the bench where Beth had been, deciding Alison will participate enough for the both of them.

And maybe – briefly – she understands: why Alison is the way she is, always needing to be concerned about her _friend_.

Watching her tense up as a group on stage acts out a child's interpretation of a breakup, their tiny faces crumbling into exaggerated pain. Watching her hand tuck under her chin, trying to fold her emotions into something proper. There can't be much room for anything outside of worry, Rachel considers. Worry and needing to organize everything she possibly _can_ control.

(Maybe Rachel felt the same, when her mother-)

Clementine pretends to cry on stage and Alison breathes out like she'd been waiting for just this moment and Rachel presses her hand against the warm bench next to her, focusing hard on the feeling of the varnished grain and nothing else.

/

The rain is coming down in absolute _sheets_ when they make their way to the mess hall that afternoon, and Rachel laments only having her umbrella as she tries to sop up the wetness and flecks of mud from her bare legs with stolen napkins. Her sleeves are soaked, something she didn't consider from only ever using an umbrella in between buildings and vehicles back in the city, everything about her unpleasantly damp, and the raincoats tossed over a table to dry seem to be mocking her; grinning ducks and frogs and one bright bumblebee, all eyeing her like she's so embarrassingly _not_ cut out for this.

(And maybe it has something to do with the way Cosima's looking at her as well, arriving a surprising five minutes after Rachel and completely dry under her rainbow-colored poncho.)

It's essentially two hours of board games and puzzles, the contents of a giant metal cabinet spread out across one of the long tables, Rudy taking it upon himself to rig them up with some half decent music from the kitchen's boombox.

It could be worse, Rachel tells herself, her girls thrilled to fawn over the seven year-olds, putting her unbearably close to Cosima. She could be stuck with Sarah. Or she could be stuck with Sarah and _Paul_ , and have to witness their disgusting attempts to flirt with each other while Sarah pretends to not be interested. She tells herself this mainly to feel better about Cosima staring at her, lazily sorting out Monopoly money into their rightful slots and nodding every so often at the story one of her girls is telling her.

Rachel's still trying to rub off some of the dried mud, conceding to rolling up her sleeves to let her arms dry, not one of her children wanting to play with her now that they have little girls and the nine year-old boys to bother.

If she was concerned with what Cosima thought it might not look too good, but mostly she's trying to be happy she doesn't have to get involved in the Twister game that Rudy's overseeing at the end of the tables. Falling on top of a child while getting her socks dirty is _not_ her idea of a good time. She's with Beth on this one.

"So does it not rain that much where you're from?" Cosima asks, the girl at her side now occupied with the tiny Monopoly figurines.

It's said with a smile that would seem friendly to anyone else and Rachel resists the urge to scowl.

"There certainly isn't this much mud," Rachel bites back, deciding not to bother schooling her features into something outwardly harmless. "And there certainly isn't any need to be outside for more than five minutes at a time.

Cosima nods and considers that, her smile faltering slightly before she politely pulls it wider. "City girl, then?" she asks, and when Rachel nods she pries, "Which one?"

The child grows bored with the contents of the Monopoly box and moves on to join a game of Candyland with Sierra and two of the younger girls. They're sitting on the floor between tables, Sierra talking slowly and excruciatingly clear as if the girls might not understand her otherwise and Rachel faintly wishes she could take two or maybe three of her campers for the remainder of the summer and just ditch the rest. They're such a bother.

She redirects her attention to Cosima, who's waiting with her stupid fanged smile and elbows on the table as if this is the most interesting thing in the room right now. (Rudy's going wild with the Twister spinner, tapping it to the beat of the music, but Rachel doesn't really feel like giving him the attention he so clearly desires.)

"Toronto," she says in a bored tone. "Cambridge before that, until I was eight."

Cosima's eyes widen a little as if she's given her some revelation. "Dude. You know Sarah's from Toronto too? Have you guys like, ever met before?"

It's a city of _millions_ , Rachel feels like telling her, and she certainly wouldn't go near the places where Sarah's likely to hang out, but the new knowledge sits heavy in her stomach. All this time, she could have been stuck with the ingrate. They could have passed each other on the street. The rare occasions Rachel took the subway, she might have shared a train with the worst possible person.

She actually shivers.

"It's quite a large city," she settles on saying to Cosima, not wanting to continue down this line of thought.

She also doesn't want to learn anything else about Cosima, so turning this interrogation around on her would be fruitless.

Cosima seems content enough to let it die out anyway, turning her attention to the kids for a while before finally taking notice of Rudy leading a group of campers in what looks to be the wave while they contort their bodies on the Twister mat.

"What the fuck," Cosima mutters under her breath, glancing at Rachel to see if she took offence. "Sorry, it's just like- I don't even know. He's such a weird… Loose cannon, you know?"

Rachel doesn't, not really having had to interact with him until now, and even so they haven't spoken a word, but she gives Cosima a nod regardless as his behavior doesn't seem to refute her comment. He isn't someone she'd feel comfortable leaving her girls with, that's for sure. But she'd say that of about half the camp staff as well.

Sahar comes up to her a second later, ignoring Cosima's kind smile in a move that fills Rachel's chest with warmth. She has a box in her arms, clutched to her chest, and steps over Sierra to show her, saying, "Rachel, they have The Game of Life! See?"

She holds it out like it's some precious treasure and Rachel wishes the updated design on this particular box didn't cause something in her to constrict. She'd told her at lunch, offhandedly, of all the times she'd played it with her parents, after an unnervingly long discussion on Chutes & Ladders that both she and Sahar had opted to tune out. ( _What's your favorite,_ Sahar had asked, looking at her like she hung the moon. Of all moments to tell the truth.)

"I see," she says, stiffening on the bench as Sahar climbs on next to her.

"We can play it," Sahar says, setting about opening it up, removing the contents like dissecting some dead animal. "What color do you like to be? Can I be green?"

"Sure," Rachel says, and, "white," and Sahar hands her the white car like it's a glittering diamond.

Cosima's watching them with her tongue tucked between her teeth, her smile caught somewhere between interested and conveniently frozen. The polite thing to do would be invite her to play as well, but Rachel can barely bring herself to play with Sahar let alone with someone whose presence will definitely tarnish the game's memory. Cosima seems like the type to win everything she plays, anyway. Rachel would rather not deal with that today.

"Marlow wants to play too," Sahar says, deciding for the both of them as she waves Marlow over.

"Can I be the blue car?" she asks as she sits down on Cosima's side of the table. "No wait, red. I like red best. Actually I like orange, but not that orange."

Sahar frowns at her for a second before flicking the red car at her and then goes back to setting up the board.

She gives the spinner a good spin to test it out, the sound something Rachel hasn't heard in a long time; it gives her an odd pang of nostalgia, something tangy and sore, as if she's listening to her mother's heels hit the floorboards above her. She could almost be seven again, playing quietly in the living room as her mother gets ready for a night out. She can almost smell the perfume, taste the lipstick her mother let her put on before sending her downstairs to get ready for the sitter – the waxy feeling as she runs her tongue along it, and her mother laughs and snaps in the same breath, and she sends the spinner twirling into oblivion just to drown it out.

Maybe they should play Scrabble; Rachel would spell out u-s-e-l-e-s-s and bite her cheek as she racked up the points.

"You know I never really got the point of this game," Cosima says, leaning in. Rachel feels like telling her to go find her own kids to bother. "Is it supposed to show you how short life is? Or how it really doesn't matter what you do, you land where you land?"

Marlow glances at her with a ten year-old's disdain.

"It's just supposed to be fun," Sahar says.

"You get to have kids," Marlow adds.

Cosima nods with the slightest hint of alarm, telling them, "Yeah, but there's so much more to life than that. Like school, and good careers. You could be scientists!"

Sahar blinks at her but Marlow catches on to Rachel's amused smile and turns to Cosima with wide, innocent eyes.

"But I just want to be a mommy and stay home with my babies all day," she tells her. "Working is for my _husband_."

Cosima's hands freeze in the air, her mouth open slightly as she tries to compute what she's just heard. It looks as if she might actually explode until Marlow dissolves into giggles, bringing Sahar with her, the two of them laughing as Cosima realizes what just happened.

"I'm just kidding, I'm totally going to be a forensic pathologist. Like CSI," Marlow says, grinning. Sahar seems a little lost so Marlow adds, "I get to look at dead bodies."

Rachel wonders if it's possible to care about _two_ campers, trying to stuff down the pride that's filling her chest as Marlow smiles to herself and Cosima tries to limit her delight to a calm _that's awesome, dude_.

"My mom has all the CSIs on DVD," Marlow tells Cosima, happy to please another counselor, her feet swinging under the table.

"Do you like science classes at school?" Cosima asks. "You'll need to know a lot of science stuff to get to your dream job. But that's great that you know what you want to be."

Marlow tells her about some of the experiments she did in fourth grade and Cosima seems thrilled to be the audience for this. Sahar looks up at Rachel, her green car small in her hand and the pink figure in it hanging on for dear life.

"I don't know what I want to be," she says to Rachel, sounding quietly unsure.

Rachel has her car in her hand as well and suddenly feels quite childish for it, setting it down on the table in front of her to make it look like she's more equipped to be having this conversation. It's strange, all of a sudden being the adult in the room, having a child look to her the way she's sure she looked to the adults around her before she learned better. She hasn't felt like a child for a long time, but it's strange finally being seen as an adult.

"Most people don't have any idea what they want to be at your age," she tells Sahar. "Even in college there are a lot of people who still don't know. And that's entirely okay."

Sahar frowns. "But then how do you get a job? And live your life?"

Cosima glances over as if offering to step in any time, not sure if Rachel can handle this one. Marlow's still going on about light and sound and using prisms so Rachel gives her head a small shake and focuses on Sahar who's watching her like she has all the answers in the world.

"You can have myriad different jobs before you find one you like," Rachel says. "Or you can find happiness in other parts of your life: your family, your hobbies perhaps. Many people prefer that to focusing on their careers."

She doesn't want to tell her most people have jobs simply to survive, not ready to destroy a child's image of the universe just yet.

Cosima seems impressed by her answers and gives her a tiny thumbs up, subtle enough to not cause Marlow to think she's not paying attention, but Rachel does her best to ignore it. She doesn't need Cosima's approval. She has, after all, spent time with her younger cousins before. And honestly talking to most people in high school was like talking to children.

Sahar finds comfort in the answer, setting her car down on the board and plucking out a pink figure for Rachel's car as well.

"You wanna be a girl, right?" she asks.

Rachel nods and Marlow cuts herself off in the middle of a sentence, asking, "You can be a boy?!"

"You can be whatever you want to be," Cosima says, apparently always ready with her agenda. Rachel mentally rolls her eyes. "If you want to take a wife, instead of a husband…"

Marlow's eyes widen and Sahar giggles.

"Then I'd be a boy," Marlow says, and Rachel tunes out as Cosima opens her mouth again.

The last thing she needs is to listen to these liberal politics while already decimating her beloved childhood game. If Cosima wants to turn the next generation of girls into a pack of lesbians, Rachel will not be a part of it.

She busies herself with organizing the cards in the box Sahar's left a mess on the table beside her, sorting out insurance policies from money and lining everything up with the tidiest edges. If she focuses hard enough she can almost pretend she isn't here in the mess hall with one of her least favorite counselors, stuck listening to her blather on about _identity_ and _love_ like it's at all appropriate to be discussing over board games. (Board games that Rachel didn't even really want to play, but is nonetheless upset that Cosima's holding her co-players captive in a conversation.)

As she considers it she realizes _most_ counselors are her least favorite – and finding anyone not on that end of the scale is surprisingly difficult. Beth maybe. Certainly not Tony, as she saw him spit on the ground once.

It's like high school all over again.

Only this time Rachel doesn't even have any teachers to spend her lunches with, or the caretaker who always found her when he was doing his crossword.

She sticks the pink figure in the driver's seat of her car and wishes they came in white, or black, or anything neutral and nondescript and didn't make her feel like clawing her skin off every time she looked at it. _Pink_. Monopoly had it right with the top hat.

/

Had it not been raining Sarah would've been stuck with Paul and his lot for volleyball, so she's _grudgingly_ grateful to have an entire ocean dropped down on the camp in bloody tidal waves.

It isn't so much a storm without thunder and lightning but the wind is strong enough to constantly whip Sarah's cheap dollar store poncho around her waist so basically everything but her shoulders is sopping wet and as she drags her group of whiners to the arts and crafts cabin after the shittiest drama session she decides she'd be better off with a garbage bag. At least it would more or less stay put.

A few of her girls are having the same problem, their parents having sent them with oversized raingear or (in Quinn's case) some designer jacket that really does nothing to keep them dry. They stick to trees, mainly, where the downpour is less aggressive, Madeleine reminding them the whole time to get the heck out of there if they see lightning.

Honestly, Sarah wouldn't mind losing a couple of her kids at this point. At least she wouldn't have to listen to them bitch about being wet when Sarah's not sure she'll ever feel dry again.

They stumble into the arts and crafts cabin in a haze, shaking off the water and bumping into each other in the small space by the door like blood-drunk mosquitoes. There's too much chatter for Sarah to really notice, at first, but as the movement at the front of the group stops she finally looks up and realizes they aren't alone in here.

Rachel's sitting at the back table with her lips pursed and her girls are all staring at Sarah with their paintbrushes dripping.

Of _course_ Rachel would have thought to book arts and crafts; the morning meeting was an absolute fog, but Sarah definitely remembers seeing Rachel in actual clothes and more alert than anyone should be that early in the day.

"I uh, didn't realize," Sarah says, acutely aware of the crinkling of her cheap poncho as it settles around her. "Thought maybe it'd be…"

As she speaks she realizes how dumb that was, not considering that _someone_ at least would have booked it off, if not Rachel. No way arts and crafts would be available when they actually might need to build an ark in the near future.

Rachel's mouth is open slightly as if she's waiting for Sarah to chastise herself, both amused and irritated at Sarah's presence.

"I guess we'll just…" Sarah looks at her girls and there's a series of eye rolling and silent pleading as they start to button back up their jackets and she wonders if looking pathetic enough will invoke Rachel's one tiny strand of human empathy.

The last thing she wants to do is drag her girls back to their cabin to sit on the floor and try to play some shitty game until dinner. They seem to be on the same page as her, grumbling and very slowly shuffling back out to the door, anger fully justified at Sarah's lack of foresight. She's considering maybe hiding out in the boathouse and trying to teach them knot tying or something when Rachel lets out a cross between a scoff and a sigh and finally speaks.

"You could…" Rachel gets out, looking like she hates herself for every letter that escapes her lips, "…stay. If you'd rather not head back into the rain."

There are twenty girls watching the two of them like it's some sign of the apocalypse and Sarah's not so sure herself, but Rachel rolls her eyes and motions to the empty table and it's apparently all Sarah's kids need as they wiggle out of their raincoats and pile into seats like puppies until Sarah's left standing by the door on her own.

"Uh, thanks," she says, and then spends a good minute trying to untangle herself from the poncho before hanging it up on one of the open hooks.

Rachel watches her with disdain, a paintbrush in her hand, and Sarah realizes coming here means she'll actually have to figure out some sort of art thing to do with her kids. (And _not_ a repeat of last year's failed bird craft. She never wants to see another feather again.)

"So what are you guys doing?" she asks, moving into the room, close enough to Rachel's lone table to clearly make the girl uncomfortable.

Rachel presses her lips together and pointedly glances down at the painting in front of her. "Watercolors," she says. "I suppose, if you'd like, you could join us."

"The watercolor paper's in the paper cupboard," Madeleine says helpfully, hopping up to go get it.

Sarah's glad, because she knows where one one thing is in here and that's the giant sink.

Madeleine recruits Sameera to help her get the paint and paintbrushes, the two of them setting up the table exactly as Rachel's set up her own group. A paint set per two girls, everyone with a brush, four large containers of water to share. It's better than Sarah could do and she thanks Madeleine as she makes her way around the table.

"So what are we painting?" she asks.

Quinn makes a face like how the fuck should she know and Afsheen shrugs, swirling her crusty paintbrush around one of the recycled yogurt containers holding water as if she'd be content to do this all activity block even without paint.

Rachel's girls have the beginnings of actual scenes on their paper, light colors dissolving into white, and Sarah wonders if Rachel gave some sort of lesson with this and when she turned into this weird, calm artist type. The last time they were here together Rachel kept grimacing at the paper mache like she'd rather eat dirt than be stuck watching it come to fruition.

"We're painting things that make us happy," one of Rachel's girls says finally, her paper filled with something blue.

"Or a happy memory," another one adds.

Rachel has a slight smile on her lips over in the corner and it doesn't even disappear right away when Sarah glances over – like she might not actually mind Sarah seeing, for once, that she can feel anything other than contempt.

(Rachel's painting too; Sarah's not exactly surprised that she'd have something to paint but she still wonders what, the little she can see from here something soft and yellow and entirely abstract.)

"Do you wanna paint too, Sarah?" Raya asks, shifting in her chair a little like she's making room.

The table's not too crowded, and maybe if it was just her girls Sarah would join them, settling in to be a part of their conversations and happy to watch their paintings take form, but something has her hesitating and glancing back at where Rachel sits alone. Pity, she tells herself. But it isn't.

"I think I'm gonna, uh," she mumbles, grabbing a piece of thick paper and a paintbrush from where Madeleine put the extras, and then tries to casually drift over to Rachel's scratched up table.

There's an extra chair next to Rachel but she waits for Rachel to say something, to acknowledge that Sarah's standing here hoping she'll tell her it's okay.

She doesn't even _want_ to spend the next hour and a half with Rachel.

But she's still hovering here, clutching her art supplies like a stupidly eager kid.

Rachel lifts her gaze slowly, taking in Sarah's presence, the dampness of her clothes, her dripping hair. And then she sighs and nods and flinches as Sarah sits down, sending a light spray of water across Rachel's side as her hair settles into place.

"I've never done watercolor before," she admits, paintbrush clunky in her hand as she stares at Rachel's paint set.

Her brother's the one who's into art, always bringing home top-graded projects from school and filling the fridge with something Mrs. S can be proud of. His Christmas and birthday gifts are always more art supplies, expensive sets and pens and things Sarah has no idea how to use, his future so clearly filled with promise. Sarah's proud of him, of course. But she's always wanted to be good at something too. Everything about art has always felt so foreign to her.

"You use the water to control the intensity of the color," Rachel says after a pause, dipping her brush in the water and then swirling it on a dry square of blue. "See how it comes up thick? The more water you use, the lighter the color."

She holds the brush up for Sarah to see, the tip a dark concentrated blue, and then swishes it away in the water.

"Start with the lighter colors," she goes on, "and then build up from there. A light wash always makes a nice background. The details come in later, in a darker tone. There's no erasing if you make a mistake."

Sarah lets out a tiny, intimidated laugh. "Sounds complicated. Are you sure the kids can do it?"

"Most kids learn watercolor in primary school," Rachel says with a lift of her shoulders.

 _You're an idiot_ , Sarah hears.

She dips her brush in the water, careful not to get too close to Rachel. She's realizing now how little space is between their chairs and how much she's doomed herself to holding her breath until it's time to clean up but Rachel seems unfazed and only watches her movements with little interest.

"What happy thing are you painting?" Sarah asks, just so Rachel will stop staring at her hand.

She drags her brush over the yellow paint without really thinking of copying Rachel's paper but then realizes it might look that way and makes a deliberate squiggle on her own paper to try to show her it's different.

Rachel frowns like Sarah's asking how she feels about the death penalty (probably all for it, actually) and focuses hard on her painting with a tightened jaw.

Sarah can make out squares, some sort of wavy grid-like pattern, but apart from that it's just yellows and what looks to be peach and it might as well be an inkblot for how much sense she can make of it.

"It's-" Rachel stops and then swallows, and Sarah feels like telling her never mind, she doesn't need to know, but then she's speaking again and the words are gentle. "It's the light in my childhood bedroom, when the sun hit the quilt my mother… It's just one particular memory."

It falls out soft and delicate like eggshells and Sarah wants to cradle it in her hands, knowing how careful people sometimes need to be about their childhood memories. _Thank-you_ , she wants to say, wants to ask what it means to her, but Rachel's eyes are glassy in a way Sarah feels like she shouldn't be seeing and she does her best to look away and focus on putting more paint on her paper.

"What are you painting?" Rachel asks after a long minute.

Sarah's paper is full of yellow curls and springs and she wishes it were anywhere close to the real thing.

"My sister's hair," she admits, her lips pulling into a smile without her consent.

Rachel looks at the painting and then shifts her gaze to Sarah. "Wouldn't it look like yours? If she's your-"

She stops herself like she's said too much and Sarah nearly laughs. She _knew_ Rachel was eavesdropping the other week when Naomi was basically interrogating her about her family life.

"Nah, she's dyed it a lot, I guess," Sarah says with a shrug. Rachel nods and still looks slightly stricken about her near-admission. "But it's like if you tried to put sunshine into like, some physical form, all golden and bouncy and just… beautiful, you know? It's beautiful."

Rachel's the last person she'd choose to share this with, insides knotting up at just the thought of Helena, and yet Rachel seems to actually get it; to get how much Sarah misses her and wants to know her. Her hand is on Sarah's leg before Sarah even realizes she's moving and the touch is warm, careful on Sarah's goosebumped skin.

She wonders if Rachel can feel all the hairs she missed shaving or the way her blood rushes in the veins below or how she's trembling, slightly, blaming it on thoughts of Helena, doing her best to keep her eyes straight ahead.

Looking at either Rachel or Rachel's hand on her thigh would shift something inside her and she can't handle the aftermath of that right now. Not when she's been doing _so well_ at not thinking about last Thursday night and what those few words did to her.

Rachel takes her hand away a second later, going back to her painting like it was nothing at all.

Sarah tries to pretend her heart isn't racing and that she can't still feel the heat of Rachel's touch like it singed into her skin, leaving behind a burn mark in the shape of her delicate fingers, something Sarah's going to be stuck dreaming about amidst Rachel's stupid voice reading that stupid book in the stupid dark.

There's a shriek not long after and a panicked _um I accidentally knocked the water over_ from Rachel's table and then Sarah's alone, doing her best to focus on Helena's hair blooming in front of her and not Rachel bent over trying to sop up the mess with paper towel. God, she's _stronger_ than this. It's like some terrible middle school… crush.

Realization hits her in the form of bile rising in her throat and she wonders if this is some sort of punishment for everything with Beth and Paul or just generally being a terrible person.

It's exactly the kind of sick joke she'd expect from the universe.

(Cosima's going to have a field day.)

Maybe she can convince someone to come out drinking in the rain tonight, so she can get pissed and pretend the thought never crossed her mind. Go back to seeing Rachel as her camp nemesis. Just _erase_ it, and move on, and spend the rest of her summer repenting like she'd intended to when she told Felix she'd be coming back.

(She should call him. Should she? Would he just laugh? Little bugger.)

"You all right?" Rachel asks, sliding back into the seat beside her.

Sarah forces her face into any other expression than shell-shocked and hopes it looks close to normal. "Fine," she gets out. "Still sick maybe?"

Rachel scoots her chair over and rolls her eyes, saying, "oh for goodness sake, Sarah, you could let a person know when they're in danger of catching your germs," and Sarah plasters on an apologetic smile and tries to convince herself she's not panicking.

Panicking would mean it's really true, and that would mean… well, something apocalyptic.

Something that will require more alcohol than she thought to bring with her.

Delphine should know what to do. She'll snag her at dinner and they'll figure something out and until then Sarah will paint the hell out of this picture and pretend not a single thing has changed except for her understanding of watercolors.

/

Delphine laughs.

It isn't a cackle, but they're standing by the trash cans and it feels that way as Sarah contemplates climbing in the nearest bin amongst all the half-eaten apples and soiled napkins.

"A crush," Delphine repeats, barely regaining her composure. "Have you told Cosima yet?"

Cosima's luckily preoccupied with a homesick camper, back at their table trying to get the kid to eat something in between sniffles, and Sarah blanches at the thought of having that conversation. _No, it isn't bloody Paul. No don't go putting the pieces together_.

"Barely told myself," she mutters.

There was one brief moment of consideration as she made herself a new rain poncho out of a stolen garbage bag from arts and crafts, back in their cabin while Zohal showered and the rest of her girls put on warmer outfits for the evening activities. As soon as the sun started to go down it dropped a good five degrees, shorts no longer cutting it, and even Sarah dug out her sweatpants for dinner. They'd be great for Sloppy Joes if she felt like eating but this potential horror story has stolen her appetite.

Delphine makes a face akin to _this is certainly a predicament_ and gently rubs Sarah's arm, and Sarah had forgotten that Delphine was basically in this same awful place last year. Thought she was straight and everything.

(Does Sarah? She's never exactly had time for labels, but in terms of things that never crossed her mind… well. Cosima certainly blindsided her a little.)

"Can I know who?" Delphine asks.

Sarah snorts and does her best not to glance back at her table. "Uh, no."

"Can I at least guess?" She looks like she might have a pretty good idea, smile teasing like that.

"No!" Sarah retorts. "Are you bloody- Christ, if I wanted Cosima to know, I'd tell her myself."

She pushes her hair back out of her face and chooses now to look over at her table, telling herself she's just checking up on her girls. The fact that she notices Rachel actually braved the Sloppy Joes tonight is entirely coincidental.

"Well," Delphine says, eyebrows raised rather smugly, "I'm assuming we'll see you at the boathouse tonight then? Perhaps with your own alcohol for once?"

Sarah has a brief vision of herself crying in Cosima's lap after a mickey of vodka and wonders if it's a good idea after all, to basically hand herself over like that, but the idea of staying in and listening to Rachel pace for the hundredth time seems so much worse.

"Yeah, okay. But I'm not sharing," she says with a cheeky smile.

Delphine feigns indignation. "Sarah Manning! After all we've done for you."

She laughs a second later and then gives Sarah a quick apologetic look for the circumstances, heading back to her table after a squeeze to Sarah's shoulder that makes it all feel like some sports-related pep talk. Keep your head in the game and all that. Sarah wonders if Delphine has ever truly experienced things going poorly for her or just operates on what she's seen happen to others.

She rejoins her own table with the rubbish she'd meant to throw out still in her hand, dropping down too hard next to Daniela and regretting it.

"Quinn said I have love handles," Daniela says immediately, turning so fast her ponytail whips Ava across the face.

Quinn starts to shrink in her seat across the table before Sarah can even properly glare at her.

"Are you _kidding_ me, Quinn," Sarah grits out, and buries her face in her hands, releasing a croak of a groan.

"She does, she-" Quinn starts to argue, but Sarah makes a noise over her words and drowns out the rest of whatever she was going to say.

It's probably the most childish way she's dealt with this feud so far but it actually seems to work, shutting Quinn up for the next ten minutes, pacifying Daniela enough for there to be no rebuttal, and Sarah gets ten whole minutes of peace to pick at the salad Madeleine so lovingly hounded her into getting. _Eggs, Sarah. Don't you think you can skip the protein. Oh my god bacon bits do not count!_

She is grateful, in the quiet moments when Madeleine doesn't feel like a mini Mrs. S sent here to micromanage her every decision. And at least it cuts down on the homesickness. If she could find herself a mini Felix she'd be set. (Nah, Felix is definitely irreplaceable.)

"Are you going to do a skit with us tonight, Sarah?" Sophia asks from the other side of the table, and Sarah realizes she'd forgotten, again, that she was even there.

 _No, I'm going to drink_ , she feels like replying. But she pulls her face away from her palms and gives Sophia a decent response because she's tired of feeling like such a shitty counselor. The little moments add up, she knows.

"If you guys decide to do one about Gremlins, count me in," she says.

There's a snicker from down the table and she hates that she knows it's Rachel. Who else.

"I don't know what that is," Sophia says with a half pout, lips ringed with red sauce.

Quinn grins. "I do. My mom-"

"Needs to stop letting you watch inappropriate movies," Sarah interrupts, smiling when Quinn's eyes flash.

"It's only 'cause my dad doesn't want me to," she says with a shrug, going back to her mess of a meal like she's all too aware of the games her parents are playing.

There's a sinking feeling in Sarah's stomach that she tries to smother with a large chunk of hard-boiled egg, doing her best not to think about what kind of home Quinn's coming from. She's had her own fair share of shitty situations, eight years of trying on different parental units before a good one stuck, and she knows what the bad ones can do to you. She wonders what kind of person Quinn would be if she'd had a chance to flourish.

"I watched The Shining with my grandpa," Madeleine says, sensing the need for something to fill the hanging silence.

Sarah's eyebrows shoot up. "You wa-"

"It's about the only thing he remembers these days," Madeleine hurries out, leaning across the table so she can see Sarah's face to emphasize that she's Fine. "He loves it. We do a lot of special things together after school, just me and him. He lives in our living room which I think is pretty funny."

Sarah's still trying to wrap her mind around a _child_ watching The Shining but it dawns on her that she really doesn't know much about her kids' home lives or what kind of events have shaped them. They could be facing some serious shit and unless they told her outright she'd just never know.

"My abuelito lives with us too," Daniela tells Madeleine. "He mostly just makes me watch Wheel of Fortune for the lady that does the letters."

The only reason anyone watches, Sarah thinks.

And then she wonders if that should've been some sort of clue, that this Rachel bullshit could've been a possibility, and forces down a forkful of lettuce with a furrowed brow.

She could ask Cosima, obviously, but at best that would get her a _fascinating_ lecture on sexuality and genetics and some vague future plans for a Pride event, at worst Cosima narrowing down the possibilities before shoving her in the lake in shock, neither one appealing enough for Sarah to abandon her dignity. (She's been to the Pride Parade, anyway. Took Felix a few years back after his first crush and got herself an eyeful of boob. _Not_ kid appropriate.) (Felix loved it.)

Delphine is at least smart enough to figure it out on her own, crossing Paul off that list so quickly Sarah could see it in her eyes and then doing the mental math to get her there.

Sarah didn't tell them about Paul until it chewed up her insides. (Not that they couldn't have seen.)

She carried that shit around with her until the acidity of it forced her to spill, so determined to need no one that it nearly destroyed her. And even then she was reluctant to share.

The only reason she'd possibly have to tell Delphine about a crush is if it was some terrible, life-altering thing that needed exterminating as soon as possible and had anything at all to do with Delphine's area of expertise. She basically told her so she _wouldn't_ have to tell. If Delphine's smart she won't mention it at all tonight and just drink with Sarah until she can handle herself, coming back to some place she can make sense of.

At least she has her garbage bag to keep her dry when she stumbles back to the cabin.

To find no one on the porch.

Which is what she _wants_.

"I'm going to force feed you if I don't see the rest of that gone in five minutes," Madeleine threatens from down the table, and Sarah lets out a long breath.

Cramming in another piece of lettuce, she vows to bring enough vodka to cleanse her soul of these impurities.

Even if it is a Wednesday.

/

It's chilly in the morning, everything damp, and Rachel lets Evie bring a blanket to breakfast half wishing she could bring one as well. Really about a third of the kids and counselors come in pyjamas anyway so it wouldn't be out of place but she's of the opinion that lingering in sleepwear only works to delay the day's start and does no one any favors.

(She's not surprised, then, to see Sarah in pyjama pants and a mangy leather jacket.)

The weather report, as read to them by the director at this morning's staff meeting, said there wouldn't be any more rain past six, but the camp's still waterlogged and full of puddles and they are to take the report with a grain of salt.

"What he means is be prepared to get rained on the second you think it's safe," Tony had muttered to anyone sitting close to him, which was (unfortunately) Rachel, Mark, and Art, none of whom replied.

At the very least the trees are doing their best to rid their branches of lingering water and the overcast skies remain unpromising. Outerwear is a necessity.

Rachel pulled out the only sweatshirt she owns this morning, a gift from her father upon receiving her university acceptance letter, the school's logo emblazoned across the front on an unfortunate navy. She'd be worried about Sarah recognizing the school and figuring out they're in the same city if she wasn't so sure that Cosima already told her and hadn't picked up on the fact that Sarah is currently nursing a particularly bad hangover, hunched over the table like she's accepted death. It feels like a gift from the universe.

She watches at first; Sarah's kids seem to understand she's not feeling well, hopefully all still too young to know why, but are nonetheless pestering her with questions as she grunts from where she's hidden her face. One of them (Madeleine) is hounding her with a plate of scrambled eggs, oblivious to the lurching of her shoulders that is no doubt the suppression of a dry heave.

It's at this that Rachel slides her way down the bench, not so much to save her but to tease her in a way that won't end in vomit.

"Beautiful morning," she says as she stops with an inch of space between them, greatly enjoying the groan she gets in return.

Sarah doesn't lift her head off her arms and looks, from this angle, to be a puddle of dark, tangled hair spilling out across leather, but Rachel can _feel_ the rude look she's giving her.

"What do you want, Rachel," Sarah mutters.

One of her girls glances at Rachel like she has a death wish but Quinn and her current accomplice look on with glee, all too happy to witness the pestering of their counselor.

"I just thought I'd come to say good morning, since I didn't get a chance to at the staff meeting," she says, her voice sickly sweet. "Of course that's because you weren't _at_ the staff meeting this morning. Am I to assume you've gone and gotten yourself sick again, Sarah?"

Sarah's head finally pops up and her cheek's creased from the sleeve of the jacket, the redness emphasizing how pale and vaguely sweaty the rest of her is. Rachel pulls her lips into a smile.

"You know bloody well-" Sarah gets out before stopping herself, glancing over to the rest of her girls who try to busy themselves with their breakfast.

She resigns herself to narrowing her eyes in a look that might be threatening if she wasn't this hungover and then glances down to where Rachel's leg is nearly touching hers. It's only at this that Rachel considers her decision to sit so close, clearly not needing to press up against the girl to get her point across. It'd be regretful if it didn't seem to bother Sarah so much.

"Are you not eating today?" she asks, motioning to the empty table in front of Sarah. "You know breakfast's the most important meal of the day."

" _Thank_ -you," Madeleine says from the other side of Sarah. "I got her eggs but- You know, even if you're sick, Sarah, you still need to eat. You're supposed to be on our team for Capture The Flag today."

"We have to beat my brother," a girl says from the end of the table.

Sarah exhales very slowly and directs her grimace at Rachel, who can't help the smirk that forms in response. "Don't you have your own girls to bother?" Sarah asks.

"Actually they're pretty self-sufficient this morning," Rachel replies, lifting her shoulders.

Even Evie is a little less needy than usual, maybe due to the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Rachel won't question it in case it reminds her she hasn't stuck her hair in her mouth since yesterday.

Sarah finally takes in Rachel's sweatshirt, her eyes widening almost imperceptibly before she seems to put two and two together. It wouldn't be something that slipped Cosima's mind, so Rachel surmises that the alcohol had just temporarily wiped it from Sarah's memory. Too bad that couldn't have worked for a week ago; maybe Rachel would be able to read her book without thinking of that soft look in Sarah's eyes.

"If I ever find your house," Sarah says, nodding at the sweatshirt, "I'm gonna egg it _so hard_. Hand to God."

Rachel laughs and rises from the table, deciding she might want a second cup of coffee this morning after all. (Not at all noticing that Sarah has nothing.) "I'd love to see it. Maybe you'll even get my father's car."

She leaves before she can catch Sarah's expression, ignoring the slight twist of her heart as she walks over to the drinks and cereal station. It's entirely related to teasing Sarah anyway; she's simply enjoying seeking revenge for the loud stumbling on the other side of the wall that woke her last night, enforcing that these poor decisions have consequences. Surely she should have learned that as a child.

(A foster child, though. No parents to shape her, barreling through the world alone. What little Rachel knows about foster care comes from a brief panic succeeding her mother's death that her father might follow suit in his loneliness and mostly stemmed from one too many books on orphans but she knows enough to know there's a reason Sarah's lacking such basic skills. There simply wasn't anyone to teach her.)

She doesn't make eye contact as she returns, wordlessly leaving a coffee in front of where Sarah's propped herself up with her hand and then going back to her own half of the table.

"Hey, thanks," Sarah calls down, but Rachel pretends not to have heard.

It's pity. Of course it's pity, but a tiny smile slips out anyway, betraying her face to anyone watching as she sips the coffee she got for herself and purposely doesn't look over.

She spies Sarah with the coffee later, hiding her face behind sunglasses despite the overcast sky as their groups come together for soccer; Rachel heads straight to the damp bleachers and sits on a bin liner she snagged from the mess hall but Sarah valiantly attempts to stand on the sidelines, clutching her coffee with an iron grip as soccer balls run rampant in front of her, before clomping over to the bleachers with a hand covering her mouth.

Rachel's three benches up and is somewhat surprised when Sarah plops down next to her, immediately groaning about the wetness of the wood and nearly spilling whatever's left of her coffee.

"Could've bloody warned me," she mutters, cheeks pale where the sunglasses don't cover.

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "It's been raining. I didn't think it was necessary to make the connection for you, Sarah."

She's wearing dark jeans anyway so it won't be an issue when she gets up, mud already spotting the legs. At least there's one other person at this camp who doesn't own rain boots; Rachel was starting to think she'd missed some glaring memo. Maybe it's a city thing.

She very nearly asks Sarah where Cosima's from before realizing she doesn't care outside of a sick desire to hear it's the countryside, easily seeing her on a farm with hemp-obsessed parents. Of course everything's about to change as they all go off for university anyway – maybe Rachel will get lucky and Sarah will head to some crappy college outside of the city, clearly not possessing the grades to get into any of the good ones. It'd be nice to know she was returning to the city alone.

"Have any plans for once the summer's over?" she asks lightly, telling herself she's just making conversation.

Sarah's sitting there all hunched over like that creature from Lord of The Rings, grimacing each time the wind picks up, her hair seemingly one giant knot from under her hood. She tenses as Rachel talks and barely even turns to reply.

"Uh, just school and my shitty job," she says, sinking slightly lower across her knees.

That could be _anywhere_.

"Oh, which school are you going to?" Rachel asks. She sounds pleasant to her own ears and the voice is almost foreign.

Sarah exhales and sits up, finally turning to face Rachel. "Look, this isn't something I wanted spread around, but I'm repeating grade twelve. Didn't exactly have enough credits to graduate."

"Truancy?" Rachel guesses with a raised eyebrow, but regrets it as Sarah's face clouds over.

"Kinda hard to want to go to class when you don't get half of it," she mutters, hardening with each word as if expecting Rachel to throw them all back in her face.

Which is exactly what Rachel _would_ do, if it were anyone else, or even any other day, seeing how much it clearly bothers Sarah to be in this position. But… it clearly bothers Sarah, and Rachel doesn't know why that's spurred an ache in her chest or a desire to smooth it over like she's suddenly someone who cares about the feelings of others.

She has her hand on Sarah's knee before she knows what she's doing, the second time in two days. Even through the denim she can feel the heat of Sarah's body and tries to will away the flush that comes to her cheeks.

"That's entirely understandable," she says, eyes fixed straight ahead on the expanse of grey sky.

"I wanna do better, this time," Sarah admits, her voice soft, and Rachel doesn't know what to do with that but let it fill the air between them.

They both seem to be staring at the same vacant spot of sky, taking notice as a seagull comes through and in a great gust of wind somersaults through the air, body twisting and tumbling as it tries to regain its balance.

"Do you think it knows how to panic?" Rachel asks as it finally rights itself.

Beside her Sarah's gaze drops to her lap. "No doubt in my mind."

Rachel pulls her hand away slowly but lets it fall between them on the bench, ignoring the dampness of the wood and the chill of the wind across her knuckles. _It's supposed to be summer_ , she wants to joke, but Sarah's still staring at her knee, eyes vacant, and Rachel realizes this is more than the bird.

Sarah's presence beside her suddenly feels like a fault line at the start of an earthquake.

Rachel grips the bench, trying not to fall in.

"It's gotta say something about the coffee when it isn't any worse stone cold," Sarah says with a forced lightness, bringing the coffee to her lips.

Rachel had definitely noticed that as well; it makes her miss her father's French press, which is about the only part of her father she truly misses. That and the small café near her school, which she'll likely never visit again as she certainly won't have a reason to be in the area.

"You know the camp website promised great food," Rachel replies, schooling her features into something serious. Sarah still catches the smirk.

"They write that shite themselves," Sarah laughs. "I swear, half the reviews are just the director trying out whatever new slang he learned the summer before."

Rachel can't stop the grin that slips out. "Well I was certain this camp definitely wasn't _groovy_."

She laughs at the sound of Sarah's laughter, the two of them giggling as the wind runs through them and turns it into shivers. Rachel's chest is filled with an airiness after the laughter dies down and they're left smiling at each other, Sarah pushing her sunglasses up over her hood so her full face is visible, the silence taking a moment to settle.

When it does Rachel's confronted with the sheer oddity of this situation – of sitting here with _Sarah_ , and actually enjoying herself, and momentarily forgetting that she hasn't yet made a single friend. Maybe this is what it's like to let people in.

She glances down at where Sarah's hand has dropped down beside hers.

Sarah seems about to say something when a cheer erupts from the soccer field and Rachel realizes the practice has evolved into a game, one of the teams apparently scoring the first goal and running around like a pack of wolves in celebration. Their pinnies are tight over their jackets and sweatshirts; colors muted in the dismal weather. Even the blue seems closer to grey.

"Whose team was that?" Sarah asks. Her sunglasses drop forward as her head moves and she scowls and removes them to properly slide them on again.

Rachel squints at the field. "Yellow, I'm assuming. They've mixed up the girls but yellow seems to be celebrating."

It's Sahar's team, and Rachel's somewhat proud. Even with the slipperiness of the field they managed to score a goal. It doesn't hurt that Sierra and Clementine are on the opposite team.

"You know, I have a girl named after a fruit," Rachel tells Sarah after a pause, the two of them trying to pay more attention to the game below.

Sarah chuckles. "Clementine? I saw her around last year, but didn't really get to know her. Is she that bad?"

Rachel considers the question before realizing she hasn't exactly looked much further than the name. "Most likely," she says. "I just think it's ridiculous – why would you saddle a child with that? Will anyone take them seriously?"

"Doctor Clementine will see you now," Sarah says in a low voice, imitating whatever hellish receptionist she's apparently seen.

"Exactly," Rachel says with a nod.

Sarah shakes her head, a smile still on her lips. "I don't know, is it better or worse than Bandit? Because there's definitely a Bandit in the eight year-old boys."

"Oh no," Rachel says gravely, "that's definitely worse. Poor child."

"It's the hipsters," Sarah says, and they both chuckle again.

There's a commotion on the field just as Rachel notices a fine mist coming down with the next gust of wind and Sarah zips up her leather jacket, glaring at the sky.

"Guess we're all stuck inside, then," she says, gruffly heaving herself off the bench.

Rachel tries not to stare as she downs the last dregs of her coffee, revealing the pale column of her throat as her head tilts back before being swallowed up once again by a curtain of dark hair.

Of course she's upset about having to head indoors, and not at all about leaving the bleachers. She's stuck with Paul for arts and crafts next and that will seem twice as long knowing he's likely to join them for whatever inside activity they'll be forced into for the afternoon. Freeze dance in the rec hall will be _tedious_. She can't even imagine playing Twister with his brood.

"You coming?" Sarah asks, suddenly on the field, staring up at Rachel through the small opening of her hood.

Rachel grudgingly pulls up her own hood as well and prays she doesn't look half as ridiculous. No use ruining her hair in the light coating of rain.

"Where are we going?" she asks as she climbs down the bleachers.

Sarah shrugs, motioning towards the specialist who's herding the kids to one large group at the end of the field. "Shelter? Maybe the covered picnic tables by the sports shed. If he thinks we're gonna take over for the last half hour he's got another thing coming."

Rachel trails behind her as Sarah stomps through the grass, her hiking boots picking up mud with great velocity. She's not exactly sure who's responsible for entertaining the kids in the event of being rained out but doesn't doubt that there will be hell to pay if this freckle-faced youngster tries to pin it on Sarah – anger may be numbing her hangover for now, but as soon as she comes to a stop the pain will return.

At least, for once, Rachel's on her good side.

And as she steps through the mud she wonders how exactly that happened without her noticing.

/

The camp gets divided between the rec hall, the mess hall, and the arts and crafts cabin in the afternoon, drizzle turning into another downpour and camp director scrambling at lunchtime to find some place for everyone to be.

It's supposedly arbitrary but is no doubt some form of karmic retribution as Rachel finds herself stuck with Sarah, Delphine, Cosima, and Art for another miserable afternoon of board games, and Alison managed to secure the arts and crafts cabin for her, Beth, and Mark with the seven year-old boys. Still, better than the chaos of the rest of the boys descending on the rec hall in what Paul laid out as "Hunger Games, but dodgeball." Rachel's unsure if the mirrors will survive.

"You know that's gonna end in a phone call home," Sarah had muttered to Cosima as they all huddled around the upper staff table at lunchtime for a sham of a meeting.

It'll be a miracle if it ends without a broken bone, but Rachel was more focused on the way Alison clutched Beth's arm, as if she was afraid to let go lest she disappear in a cloud of smoke. She's fairly certain their arts and crafts will be more Alison doing everything in her power to keep Beth in her sight. She almost feels sorry for Mark, stuck trying to run a craft between them.

The mess hall dissolves into another kind of chaos with fifty kids and one metal cabinet of games, kids spreading out in groups across the tables to try and at least find some space for themselves.

Rachel finds herself stuck at a table with the rest of the counselors minus Art, who actually seems content to sit on the floor with his six year-olds and try to guide them through a game of Cranium, the rule sheet never leaving his sight. Delphine on the other hand gave her girls a giant floor puzzle and left them to their own devices, confident the older kids would keep an eye out. Rachel's almost disappointed that they do.

If she was smart she would have followed one of her girls and joined whatever terrible game they've set up – even Twister, which looks to be mostly Sarah's girls with a couple younger ones. Anything other than quietly sit three feet from Sarah as she tries to pretend she's not listening to their conversation.

They're going on about something from Cosima's personal life that they all seem familiar with, and it's so much the lunch tables that Rachel avoided in high school she wants to roll her eyes.

 _Scott_ keeps coming up. An old flame or a cousin or _something_ , and some photo of his cat that Cosima will "totally show" Sarah after dinner. Rachel's so bored she gets up and finds herself one of the sad remaining puzzles, some artsy oil painting in nearly a thousand pieces, and brings it back to the table in a huff.

(Of course she doesn't _have_ to sit here, but she sat down first and she refuses to let them bully her out of her preferred place. The other tables are all littered with kids and she'd rather not accidentally step into a conversation if she can help it.)

"You actually gonna do that?" Sarah's asking, three pairs of eyes suddenly on Rachel, although Sarah's still behind those sunglasses.

She focuses on sitting up straight and not the burning of her cheeks. "Well there isn't much else to do," she says curtly.

If they weren't aware of the giant gap of space between where they've gathered and where Rachel sits they are now, all staring down the table with amusement and what looks to be sympathy. Rachel wants to hurl the box at each of their faces. (She _hates_ it, how different Sarah is around them; how she loosens up and grows two feet taller and could scale a building. It isn't Sarah. It's some act she puts on that Rachel wants to yank from her lips.)

"You could sit and chat with us," Delphine offers, but it sounds like drinking bleach.

At the polite shake of Rachel's head she seems content to drop it, Cosima on the same page, but Sarah frowns and scoots down the bench with a look to her friends. Rachel can only blame it on the lingering hangover.

"Well then we'll do the puzzle together, yeah? Can't say I've come at one of these in a long time," Sarah says with a grin.

Delphine glances at Cosima and then the two of them are moving down the bench as well, filling the space across from Sarah and Rachel with smiles too bright for their faces. It's somehow worse than the previous sympathy.

"That's because you have like, zero spatial reasoning skills," Cosima says as she grabs for the cover of the box.

Rachel's about to tell them she has a very specific strategy when Sarah makes a face at Cosima and dumps the pieces all over the table in front of them, a mountain of bumpy edges revealing their imageless cardboard backs. It's the kind of chaos she'd expect from a child – but then again, Sarah doesn't seem to be far off.

"Nine hundred bloody pieces?" Sarah questions, turning the cover in Cosima's hands. "Think this can actually be done in two hours?"

"It could have if you didn't begin with such chaos," Rachel mutters, grimacing at the pile, and Delphine laughs.

"I agree," she says. "Start flipping them over so we can see all the pieces."

"That'll take _ages_ ," Sarah gripes.

Rachel has a handful flipped over in front of her already and tells her, "You're more than welcome to watch if you feel you can't handle it."

"Perhaps you'd like to join Cranium?" Delphine suggests.

She's the last person Rachel would expect to share a smile with but finds herself doing just that, secretly taken aback by the glow it brings to her cheeks. So Sarah surrounds herself with attractive people. Interesting.

Sarah shuts up for a minute, exaggerating a pout as she turns the pieces over, but then mutters, "I don't know why we couldn't just play Pictionary."

Cosima snorts. "Because you can't draw for shit."

"I have a Scrabble game going with Sarah on Facebook," Delphine tells Rachel, continuing to flip the pieces, "and I don't think she's scored higher than fourteen points on a single word the entire game. Getting her to take her turn is like pulling teeth."

Rachel does her best to turn her smile into something with malice but it still hangs too sweet.

"I'm impressed she knows how to play at all," she says, and pretends she doesn't see the sheepish smile Sarah tries to bite down on.

"Hey, give me a pack of cards and I'll wipe the table with the lot of you," Sarah says, pointing at them with a puzzle piece before realizing she has its match in front of her and gleefully presses it into place.

Cosima tugs it over and adds another two pieces. "Just not Go Fish," she says.

Sarah rolls her eyes and echoes the statement in a desolate tone.

It's a _child's_ game, Rachel feels like saying, but maybe that's the point; all things simple seem to evade Sarah, as if perhaps she assumes they're out of her skill set and fails before she even sets out to try. It's a shame they didn't go to the same high school – maybe Rachel could have been her tutor and pulled her through her worst subjects, allowing her to graduate with her friends.

(She still could, she very briefly considers. They are unfortunately in the same city: she could easily carve time out of her day to help her in likely English, maths, science, and even art. But that would require spending time together and Rachel doesn't even want to remember they breathe the same polluted air.)

The four of them settle into some sort of strategy in the following silence, pushing the connected pieces to the center so everyone can have a look and hopefully add on, still picking from the pile Sarah created.

About a half hour in Sarah remembers the drinks cart exists for any of the upper staff who drop by and makes them all coffee, breaking into the kitchen to snag cream. She even brings a cup to Art, letting him know he's welcome to join the puzzle, but he takes one look at their table and swears he's happy playing his modified game of Cranium. He still has eight of the ten kids sticking with it, so maybe it's actually working.

Rachel isn't entirely surprised to find out Cosima takes her coffee black with sugar, or that Delphine takes both sugar and cream. She is, however, a little stunned that Sarah knows how she takes her coffee without asking, despite figuring out Sarah's coffee preference six days ago.

There are some things that are easily picked up on when sharing a table for every meal.

"I'm just grateful we're not stuck with Alison," Cosima says a few sips in, the start of an actual picture forming on the table in front of them.

Sarah snorts and finally braves removing her sunglasses, sliding them on top of her head. "Can you imagine trying to do a puzzle with her? She'd slap our hands off. Eugh, and if _Beth-_ "

She freezes and Cosima and Delphine exchange a look as if this is some sort of admission of her guilt or wrongdoing. Rachel gets the feeling that the Paul incident doesn't come up too frequently in conversation. Which is understandable, everyone having their own alliances, but Sarah stares at the table in alarm as if she's admitted to a murder and it seems a little much. Even for the circumstances.

"Beth finally introduced herself to me," Rachel says, reluctantly stealing the focus. "At the dance session yesterday. Neither of us cared to participate – we just sat on the bench the whole time. I'm sure the specialist was thrilled."

Sarah looks at her with a momentary flash of gratitude. "Hell, I took a nap when my girls were dancing. Hip-hop is surprisingly soothing."

"That's because your girls are self-sufficient," Delphine says and Rachel remembers that she has the youngest of the camp.

It must be a summer of frustration trying to lead the six year-olds through any kind of activity, even if the group of kids switches out every two weeks. She can't imagine _choosing_ to work with that age group knowing they'd need constant hands-on guidance – it's been hard enough handling the ten year-olds and at the very least they can all tie their shoes.

She brings her Styrofoam cup to her lips with a glance to Sarah and freezes slightly as she finds herself being watched as well, Sarah only looking away as Delphine says something about a section of the puzzle.

 _I'm sorry about Beth_ , she wants to say.

But that isn't it at all, and she finds herself frowning at the space between them on the table as she filters through her sentiments.

It isn't even sorry – she wants to tell her it's unfortunate, that everyone keeps pinning Beth on her like a scarlet letter, her very own rock to roll up and down the mountain. That Beth isn't her fault or even something that comes from what Paul did to her. _Sometimes people just disappear, Sarah_.

(Her mother-)

She swallows too quickly and has to accept the burn of the liquid all the way down.

"You okay?" Sarah murmurs as Rachel fights back a cough.

Cosima's saying something to Delphine, the two of them momentarily unaware, and Rachel just nods to get this over with quickly. A few more swallows and she can barely feel the singe of tender skin.

Maybe what she wanted to say wasn't about Beth at all.

Maybe it was the soccer field, and sitting next to her on the bleachers, and how Rachel never thought she'd feel so light. _Maybe I want to say thank-you_. Or it _is_ sorry. She pictures the bird, tumbling through the air as if it'd never right itself again.

And looks down at her hands, where she's pieced together a face with a hole where the smile should be. Gaping.

Wanting.

 _Maybe I wanted to say Thursday night_.

Seven days and she can't find the words.

What was it that her father underlined, copied out in the margins? _I realize then-_

Sarah pushes out a smile, gestures with her own coffee. "Happens to the best of us."

Rachel blinks and sees her as she did a week ago, looking down on her from the top step as she glows in what little light the stars upturned. The softness of her mouth, relenting, for a moment, to no longer holding something bitter in its center. How carefully she let herself listen.

 _I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know._

"Of course," Rachel says. She locates the mouth.

It fits, roughly, in the hole where it belongs. The girl doesn't smile.

/

They do hot chocolate and ghost stories that night before karaoke to make up for no campfire, and Sarah finally finds herself alone with Cosima as the kids dissolve into groups for performances or cluster around Alison where she's roped Beth into bracelet-making.

She knew it was coming; she knew Cosima would find out through osmosis or some crap and come coax it out of her like a poison, so she isn't surprised as Cosima corners her at one of the back tables where she's tying knots in embroidery thread. (She'd sent Sameera to go get it for her, which is probably the lowest part of this. She just couldn't bring herself to face Beth or her guard dog.)

Cosima takes the wobbly chair that Sarah had been avoiding, rocking it purposely from leg to leg, fixing Sarah with one of those stupidly pleasant smiles of hers as if this might break her before she even has to talk.

She snaps out a _what_ so maybe it works.

"How long?" Cosima asks, and Sarah tugs another crude knot into the thread.

"How long what?"

Between Mrs. S and Felix at home she's sure she could play this game all night, if she wasn't acutely aware of Beth's presence across the room behind another one of the folding tables, sitting there expressionless as she wraps a strand of red thread around her fingers. Sarah keeps waiting for Alison to look over and take notice but Alison's too busy chatting, always too busy chatting, eyes wild and delirious after years of this, putting everything she has into what Sarah knows without hearing is the world's most boring story.

"Delphine says you have a _crush_ ," Cosima says, whispering the last word.

Sarah finally tears her eyes away from Beth and takes in Cosima's appearance in front of her, the usual Sarah-directed weariness cast aside for something encouraging for once.

Maybe just one time in her life Sarah could learn to not be such a burden to the people around her.

"I have a problem," Sarah says, undoing the knot she just tied to make it tighter. "A small problem. And you're not allowed to guess."

Cosima lifts her hands, palms upturned. "Hey, she wouldn't tell me anyway. Said if you wanted me to know you'd tell me yourself. I'm a little hurt, Sarah. When have I ever not kept a secret?"

"It's not that," Sarah says.

In all honesty the only person she'd want to keep it a secret from is herself, and as that's clearly not an option she'd rather just keep it as much a mystery as possible. The moment Cosima learns who it'll rise up like the dark in a nightmare and swallow Sarah whole and she can't readjust to something like that when she's barely crawled back from last summer.

Cosima frowns and Sarah pretends not to notice the split second of hurt that comes with it. "Well is there any part of it you want to talk about?" she says in a small voice.

Yes, Sarah most likely should have gone to Cosima first. And a night of drinking where Delphine and Sarah kept it from her while Sarah pushed the world away with anything she could swallow only acted as a great deal of salt in the wound, even ignoring Cosima holding back her hair as she vomited over the side of the rowboat. (God, did she miss Krystal last night.)

"Not yet," Sarah says, unable to look Cosima in the eye. "Just… give me a little time to figure it out."

"Okay," Cosima says, and it isn't as exasperated as Sarah expects; she'd forgotten how patient Cosima and Delphine were about the whole Paul thing last summer. Letting Sarah take her time even after the whole camp knew.

She can _not_ let this turn into Paul again.

(It isn't even… ugh. It isn't even close. Somehow that feels worse.)

"I take it you're not coming out tonight then," Cosima says as she shifts her chair to the other creaky leg.

Sarah grimaces. "Uh, yeah, no, probably not for a while. Why do we need to drink every night anyway? Bit excessive, don't you think?"

" _Most_ people limit themselves to like, one or two drinks," Cosima says, her lips curled up in a smirk. "Or they surprisingly just come to hang out. Something you clearly know nothing about."

"Hey, Krystal and I are a rare breed," Sarah defends.

She drops the knotted-up thread on the table in front of her, fingers sore from the constant tugging and coercing. Cosima looks at the thread and then up at her in disbelief.

"Yeah, you wish you were anything like her," she says, and turns in her seat as a song finally starts playing on the machine.

Sarah recognizes it as one of this year's pop songs, something she hasn't been able to escape from every radio station and car ride with Felix and that grates at her in the worst way. Of course it's a few of Rachel's girls, Clementine and two others, dance moves taken right from the music video.

If her hangover hadn't finally given up just before dinner Sarah would be making a beeline for the door to sit outside in the rain until karaoke ends.

Unfortunately her non-hungover self is slightly more polite and is saving the storm-out for a situation that actually deserves it, which she has a sneaking suspicion will be sooner than expected. Between Paul and Alison it's basically an inevitability.

"They're not that bad," Cosima says, motioning towards the girls on stage.

Girl named after a fruit might actually have a marketable skill, Sarah thinks, and catches herself starting to look around for Rachel before realizing not every thought needs to be shared. Especially when that was such a fleeting, one-time thing. (She's still having trouble believing it actually happened, she actually made Rachel _laugh_ , like it's something her conscious could possibly come up with on its own.)

Sarah picks up the knotted thread again and wishes Sameera had grabbed her a second color, so tired of staring at grey. Maybe she could even figure out how to make a bracelet.

"Karaoke is my least favorite night," she tells Cosima, leaning over the table so she doesn't have to say it too loudly. "Even worse than skits."

She knows she's in the minority, almost everyone preferring karaoke to skits and even karaoke to movie night when it's a terrible movie. But Sarah truly can't stand hearing kids breathe their way through songs she either hates or might have actually enjoyed at some point. Knowing she still has at least six more karaoke nights before the summer ends sits heavy in her chest.

"You're only saying that 'cause you're sober," Cosima says with a wave, eyes still fixed on the girls performing like it's actually something worth watching. "Give you a couple drinks and Alanis Morissette and we'd have to drag you off the stage."

Sarah's about to protest when she realizes it's an unfortunately likely scenario and just grits her teeth.

The trip to Montreal they've sort of half planned to legally drink could very much take them to a karaoke bar – especially if Cosima mentions this to Delphine. It'd be just like them to plan that type of public embarrassment.

"She's actually not too evil," Cosima says a second later, and Sarah quirks an eyebrow before following Cosima's line of sight to where Rachel sits with a few of her girls.

She's smiling for once, this soft, half smile that seems to be directed at one of the girls on stage, and even though Sarah definitely wouldn't peg her as someone who enjoys physical contact she doesn't seem to mind the way the girl next to her is draped across her lap and playing with her fingers. She looks _warm_. Sarah presses a hand into her stomach to smother the fluttery feeling.

"Yeah, she's-" Sarah says, realizing Cosima's looking at her for a response. "Surprised me."

Cosima's hand comes up in an odd little twist, punctuating her shrug. "Too bad, we could've used a camp villain. Although I guess we do still have Alison."

"We still have _Rudy_ ," Sarah says, as if it's possible to forget last year's end of the summer prank, and Cosima laughs and nods as Sarah finds herself looking over to where Alison sits with Beth.

She's not terrible, but she does come off as someone to avoid when all she ever does is snap at people. Sarah wonders if she knows that basically everyone here hates her – everyone but Beth, but that could just be some lingering loyalty from having gone to school together and Alison being the one to drag her to camp in the first place. God, Alison must have been even worse as a camper. Sarah can't even imagine.

(Did Beth laugh back then? Was she a normal, happy kid? She had to have been, but Sarah still pictures her young and sullen and so much the opposite of her best friend.)

(Paul told her once that Beth had a wicked sense of humor. It must be awful to mostly exist in past tense.)

"You're a little quiet tonight," Cosima says, looking at her with concern. "Is that the crush, or…"

There's a glance to where Paul sits with Tony and Rudy, the three of them cheering on the group of boys on stage. Cosima looks back to her like she might confess some big new fuckup or another layer of last year she's casually been holding onto until now – and yeah, there definitely are a couple more layers to it, but as if Sarah would even admit them to herself. She's the master of stuffing things away.

"Mostly just thinking about the state of my liver after last night," she says wryly, and laughs when Cosima does.

"Yeah, that path's not gonna get you to thirty." Her smile slips to something a little more solicitous. "But seriously, you can always tell me if something's bothering you. You know that, right?"

Her hand moves across the table and Sarah brushes her knuckles across it, saying, "Yeah, 'course. You're like my best friend."

As she says it she realizes it's scarily true; apart from Felix, she wouldn't exactly use those words for anyone back home. The girls she hung around in her current high school aren't bad, but she's also not too upset over watching them graduate without her. And her crowd from the school before that didn't even seem to realize she was gone. Who knew it would take a shitty summer job to get her someone who cared.

Cosima laces their fingers together, a soft smile on her lips. "Mine too, Sarah. I'm really glad you came back. Between you and Delphine everything I have is at this camp."

A weird nostalgia hits Sarah in a sudden wave, as if they don't have six more weeks together before she has to deal with another year of bad Skype connections and dumb group texts. She finds her throat aching like she might actually _cry_ and sees Cosima apparently feeling the same, biting her cheek, and has to laugh at how ridiculous they're being.

"God, Cos, you'd think it's the last week already," she mutters, forcing a grin.

Cosima lets out a wet laugh. "It's the rain. Obviously."

Sarah nods but then, "Is your period due? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I've only got like, a couple days to mine. And we definitely synched up last year…"

"Excuse me, girls can totally be emotional outside of menstruation," Cosima says with a stern look. "But yeah, I think I'm due next week. Downside to working with a bunch of ladies."

One of them, Sarah nearly corrects, but then it might not be such a bad thing to be around so many wildly different types of girls. It's about the only place she feels she doesn't have to make excuses for her kind of gritty femininity; she can't say high school ever gave her that.

"By the way," Cosima says, releasing Sarah's hand, "I'm totally coming to Canada for Christmas break. And if you didn't live in the _bottom of your province_ -"

Sarah rolls her eyes with an affectionate smile. "Yeah, yeah, you could bus up in a couple hours. Sorry I don't want to live under eight feet of snow."

"Sorry you don't want to save me like eight hundred dollars," Cosima teases, and Sarah's shoulders rise.

"Whatever," she says. "You staying with Delphine or me?"

What she's really asking is if she'll have to budget for a train ticket to Quebec on top of gifts, but Cosima seems to get it anyway.

"You, of course," she says, tapping Sarah's arm. "Delphine's parents already offered to pay for train fare. Hope Mrs. S doesn't mind hosting two more for the holidays. But Delphine _can_ cook, so…"

Sarah had better hold on to that conversation for before they get report cards. But then again she might be pleased to see Sarah hanging out with people who aren't likely to take her shoplifting or get high in the school parking lot, so maybe she'll be a bit kinder to the idea than Sarah's picturing. She'll still probably have to give up her bed and sleep on the floor.

"It'll just be nice to have more than three people for Christmas dinner," she says, returning Cosima's smile.

Felix is gonna love her – Sarah couldn't have picked a better friend to bring home to him. And she's sure S will come around with someone to help her in the kitchen, especially someone as gracious and polite as Delphine. Maybe Sarah will even drag them out tobogganing one night at Riverdale Park. It's weird to be thinking about snow two weeks into July, but she can't say she isn't excited by the idea.

"Your girls are up," Cosima says, alerting Sarah to four of her kids – Raya, Daniela, Zohal, and Afsheen – taking the stage with big grins.

The intro notes to yet another song Sarah would pay to not have to hear come tinkling through the speakers and Sarah sinks back into her seat, giving in to having to look like she's a supportive counselor. If everyone else can do it (and with Frozen, with the younger kids) then Sarah can manage as well.

She's sure, after all, that she'll miss this when the summer's over.

She'll miss a lot of things.

/

The end of the rain brings with it an unsettling silence, and in the dark of her room Sarah listens to the sleep-sweet breathing of her girls in their bunks and wishes it didn't hurt.

Part of her – the lonely part – thinks of Helena. It creeps up, the way it always does, and then she's biting her cheek against the pillow because in some other world she'd know the sound of her sister breathing by heart and maybe even mirror it in the other bed and the gaping wound of her childhood grows several inches wider, throbbing underneath her skin.

She slips out with the cigarettes in an effort to numb the thought and tries not to make anything of it. It isn't an addiction, but she always returns with some soft form of resolution after and it feels nice to try on a different kind of self-destruction. To let her lungs take the brunt of it for once instead of just offering up her body. That therapist S sent her to for awhile would be proud.

It's late enough that everyone out drinking tonight will be back in their beds, and while she's a little bummed to have missed the fire they built after the rain stopped it's also a relief to not have had to talk to anyone. She can't say she would have made great company. And with last night ending in vomit, even a whiff of alcohol tonight likely would have led to a repeat performance.

It's also late enough for the bugs to be out on a mission; she wishes she'd thought to put on bug spray as she swats a mosquito off her thigh. At least she packed AfterBite this year. Last summer she came home with welts.

The moon hangs heavy tonight, a buttery glow through the remaining clouds, and after all these overcast skies it's a welcome sight through the trees. Sarah pauses on the path just to look up – to take in its fullness, the light it pushes through the branches. She and Felix used to sneak out to the backyard to look at the night sky when they were younger and she thinks of him, the way he always seemed so sure someone was looking back.

 _We just can't be the only ones out here, Sarah. We're not special. There's no way it works like that_.

He's always found comfort in the arbitrary nature of the world – the opposite of Sarah, who needed to believe so badly in a reason for everything that she'd make them up for herself. Lessons we need to learn, she'd tell him. Things the universe is trying to teach us. He'd thrown it back in her face when Vic- when Vic happened, no doubt just needing someplace to put his anger, but she only threw it back at him harder. _You think I didn't need to learn my place?_

She's been a terrible sister. She trips over a tree root and stops to chide herself, for being so clumsy with her feet and with what she keeps tossing at a _child_. Her baby brother.

Maybe if she'd grown up with someone her own age-

She forces the thought away as she tugs a cigarette from the package, jamming it between her lips and lighting it with an unsteady hand. She hates Rachel's tiny lighter more than anything – the nondescript white thing that had been crammed in the emptier half of the pack, leaving a mark on her thumb every time she uses it.

(She's sure she tossed a lighter in her bag when she was packing. She uses Rachel's every time anyhow.)

It's comforting to leave a trail of smoke behind her, lingering in the damp, mulch-thick air as she trudges through the trees. It's a different brand than Vic's, a cleaner scent, and she likes the idea of reclaiming the act of smoking from memories of him; maybe next time she walks through someone's cloud of smoke downtown she'll be brought back to the forest instead of his tobacco-stained apartment and his hand around her throat.

The beachy part of the lake breaks through the trees up ahead, sand smothering pine needles and leading out to a glittering stretch of dark water. She'll never get over the way it clears her lungs just coming close to it, the air so pure and clean in a way she's come to dream about when back in the city, yearning for a breath so sharp it cuts.

It's less chilly tonight but she still shivers as she moves through the sand. The lake holds onto the cold, she's found, spitting it back when the air starts to forget it.

She's so focused on the lake, the gleam of moon on water, that she almost doesn't notice a pale form drifting outwards from the shallows. It's Beth, she realizes. Wading out towards the middle.

She's let her hair down – all Sarah can think is that it's beautiful, in the moonlight – and then there's a bloom of red around her and Sarah thinks of watercolors before Beth's arms near the surface, the source of the bleeding, and she realizes Beth is crying.

The cigarette hits the sand without a sound.

Sarah barely manages to get her jacket off before she's hurling herself through the water, the shock of the cold numbing her into a single-minded determination, and as her arms catch Beth's frigid body it's like falling through a shattered mirror.

"Just stay with me," she wills, pressing her face into Beth's wet hair to steady her grip.

Beth comes without resistance for the most part, allowing herself to be dragged out of the water. Sarah thinks it's a good sign until she notices how much blood is really coming out and Beth collapses half on top of her in the sand, limp and quiet, her lips a sickening blue.

"Beth," she says hoarsely, trying to pull her into an upright position, "please, just stay with me, please…"

There are gashes on both her wrists, blood staining the sand around them and Sarah's bare legs. All she can think is she has to slow it down, she has to keep her conscious long enough to get her somewhere with a phone, and _why_ did she leave her cell phone back on her bed.

Beth slips further against her body and Sarah lets go for a second to tear off a strip of her t-shirt, grateful for once for all the holes in her ratty wardrobe as it rips without much of a fight. She tears the strip in two and catches Beth again to wrap the cotton around her wrists, pressing down where she can feel open skin. Her health teacher's gruff voice rings in her ears – _elevate! Above the heart_ – and as she situates her body to try and get Beth to a standing position she does her best to hold her arms up without losing her grip.

Everything's so slippery – she has to tell herself it's lake water to not think about how her fingers are slick with blood.

The nearest cabin is the sixes, just down the path from the boathouse, and as Sarah struggles to keep Beth from collapsing back down in the sand she convinces herself it will be fine once she gets there; Delphine will call an ambulance and Beth will stay awake and everyone will live.

"We're gonna get you to the hospital," Sarah tells Beth, skin of her exposed stomach chafing against Beth's wet clothes. "But you've gotta stay awake for me, okay love? You've gotta stay awake."

Beth seems to be somewhat aware, eyes shut but clinging to Sarah in a way that makes her throat ache as she half drags and half carries her down the path. It takes a good ten minutes – Sarah stops twice to adjust her grip, Beth slipping down in waves of consciousness – but Sarah manages to get them to the back of the cabin, throwing the full weight of her shoulder into Delphine's bedroom window until she sees the ghostly panic of her face through the screen.

It's a full minute before Delphine comes around the side of the cabin, a hulking First-Aid kit in her grip.

She's on the phone already, giving the camp's address, and as Sarah slumps against the cabin wall Delphine says, "a counselor- my friend tried to kill herself, I believe. Her wrists."

"She's barely conscious," Sarah says, voice gravelly. Delphine repeats it into the phone.

Beth makes a soft noise as Sarah carefully lowers them both to the ground, using her body to keep Beth from lying down as she seems to be trying to do. Her muscles ache from trying to hold up Beth's arms and the cotton's soaked through, but Delphine hangs up a second later and whips open the First-Aid kit as she dials a second number.

"I'm just looking for the gauze," she says, rifling through, phone tucked against her shoulder. She pulls it out just as whoever it is answers and immediately sets about wrapping Beth's wrists over the shirt strips.

 _There's been an accident_ , she says into the phone. _We're outside of bunk six-A. She cut her wrists._

An accident, Sarah thinks, holding Beth's arms up so Delphine can wrap them, cheek pressed hard against Beth's as if by sheer force of will she can keep her awake. There's no bloody universe in which this would be an accident. She can feel Beth breathing against her, shallow. This was desperation. This was… they should've seen it coming.

"The director's on his way," Delphine says, taking Beth's wrists from Sarah to apply pressure herself. Sarah wonders if she saw her hold weakening or just needed to do this herself. "Ambulance will be here in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. The director will drive her out to the gates to make it quicker."

"Okay," Sarah says, unable to take her eyes off Beth's arms in front of her. She's hugging Beth around her middle now, every muscle in her upper body screaming for a rest but somehow unable to relax.

"Sarah," Delphine says, "she'll be okay. You saved her life."

Sarah nods numbly and wishes she could hear sirens in the distance. Anything to tell her that might be true.

/

Rachel finds herself being nudged awake by hands larger and more polished than any of her campers, and it takes a second to blink back the sleep before she realizes she's looking up at Delphine in a blood-stained shirt.

"What _happened_ ," she gasps out, lurching upwards so fast her vision blots for a moment.

"There was an accident," Delphine says, and glances down at her shirt like this is the first time she's seen it. "Beth's on her way to the hospital, Sarah found her, saved her life, but… I don't believe she should be alone right now. And she doesn't want to talk to me."

 _Sarah found her_.

Rachel tastes the words like iron on her tongue; she's standing before she can think about it, cramming her bare feet into her tennis shoes. She knows without asking the rest of it. She hears _Beth_ and she knows.

Blood, she thinks. Beth wouldn't think to bring pills to camp. She wouldn't know to keep things neat. Or maybe she'd crave a visible end.

"Where is she?" she asks, instinctively grabbing the jacket from its hook, not even knowing if it's cold outside. It was raining earlier, wasn't it? She feels dazed and can't remember.

Delphine glances back out the doorway, as if checking to make sure the kids are sleeping. "She said she needed a cigarette. I hadn't known she smokes, but- Ah, she said she left them at the lake, with her stuff, where…"

"Where she found Beth," Rachel continues.

She moves around Delphine and out through the cabin, stopping on the porch at the sight of Delphine behind her in full moonlight. Her tank top will never wash clean. Her arms are stained, but she seems to have scrubbed her hands enough for only small dark crescents to remain under her nails. As if sensing Rachel's gaze Delphine crosses her arms over her midsection.

"I'm just worried about her," Delphine says when Rachel starts moving again, helplessness tangy in her voice.

Rachel leaves her still standing there, arms crossed in the light of the moon, unable to look back as she barrels through the forest. Delphine didn't come to her for comfort; she tells herself this as she heads for the lake, not wanting to think of the clean skin of her hands or the shirt that will never un-know this night.

It _is_ cold, or at the very least she shivers in her jacket, wishing for that terrible sweatshirt, hating the sound of her shoes against the pressed earth.

Sarah found her.

Of course she did, because Sarah goes out at night and Sarah doesn't know how to attract anything but tragedy.

Rachel picks up her pace and tries not to think about an ambulance coming and going while she was asleep. About Sarah finding Beth while Rachel dreamt about _birds_ , of all things, and cage doors that wouldn't stay shut and winged creatures that still didn't leave.

She scuffs her shoe hard against a stone as she stops suddenly, seeing Sarah's curled up form through the trees about twenty feet from the lake. Had there been even a couple more clouds Rachel would have missed her. Had she kept her eyes on the water she wouldn't have spotted her at all.

Sarah has her knees pulled up on a large rock, facing out into the darkness as smoke curls around her, and doesn't seem to hear Rachel until she's clearing her throat. Even then, she turns as if Rachel isn't fully there at all – just an apparition in the shadows, hovering there with a hand outstretched until finally lowering herself onto the rock beside her.

"Delphine sent me," she says.

Sarah's hair is damp, curled in tangles down her back.

Rachel pretends she can't see the bloodstains. She takes the cigarette from between Sarah's fingers and pretends they aren't a coppery-red.

There's a beat where Sarah seems to be processing that she isn't holding the cigarette anymore and she stares at Rachel with round, shadowy eyes and then her face collapses into tears and she's pressed against Rachel before Rachel can think to react. She numbly puts an arm around Sarah's back, flinching at the dampness of her torn shirt before pulling her a little closer.

It's like comforting a child, she tells herself. She doesn't have to think about why. She just has to make it safe.

There was a paramedic, when her mother-

There was a woman with dark skin who picked her up while they loaded the ambulance. Rachel had been too big, far too heavy at nine to be in someone's arms. She didn't want to be put down.

Sarah doesn't want to be put down. Rachel pulls her fingers through Sarah's wet hair, tugging gently at the knots, wary of the cigarette in her other hand burning its way down to the filter. It feels like a grenade the way she holds it out from the both of them. She'd throw it if she wasn't sure it would take them with it.

 _You've been so brave_ , she wants to tell Sarah. The words Rachel once had murmured to her in a sea of flashing lights.

Sarah shakes against her; she rakes her fingers down Sarah's back, gentle, tucking her chin into Sarah's lake-scented hair. She has to concentrate to name Sarah's tiny, jumpy breaths as crying but she can feel the wetness against her collarbone.

Finally, after what seems like both ages and merely seconds, Sarah pulls away and wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. It leaves a smudge of what Rachel tries to think of as dirt in its wake.

"I really didn't think it was that bad," Sarah says, voice raspy.

Rachel has to fight to dissolve the sudden lump in her throat.

 _What happened_ , she wants to ask. She knows. She doesn't want to know at all.

"We should go back to bed," she says.

Sarah's eyes are glassy as she meets Rachel's gaze. "I can't, there's no way- I can't go to sleep tonight."

She sounds panicked at the thought and Rachel remembers the night she spent in the waiting room, her father pacing a tight path around the coffee table for hours before just disappearing down a hall. Someone had brought Rachel a pillow and a scratchy blanket but she left them on the seat beside her and read every single magazine instead.

"Okay," she says, and realizes her hand is still on the small of Sarah's back and drops it to the rock. "Well then I'll stay up with you."

"You don't-" Sarah starts but then stops herself, shifting her hand slightly so it touches Rachel's leg, somehow just as cold as the rock beneath them. "Okay. But we have some stops to make first."

Rachel's eyebrows raise.

"Alison," Sarah clarifies.

Of course, Rachel thinks. If anyone deserves to know, it's her. She's almost mad she didn't think of it first when she should be the levelheaded one in this situation but Sarah has a sudden fierce determination in her eyes as she rises that makes Rachel glad she didn't.

It's difficult to follow behind her, trying to match her steps to Sarah's wide, careless stride. She leaves the burnt-out cigarette in the ground by the rock as a sort of marker for them having been there, hoping that's all that stays and that no blood transferred to the rock's rough surface, but the smell of the smoke clings to her fingers and she wonders if she'll ever be able to associate it with anything other than Sarah.

She reaches the cabin about half a minute after Sarah, but somehow Alison is stepping onto the porch just as Rachel climbs the steps and it feels so much like an intrusion she has to hold onto the hem of her jacket.

"What happened?" Alison asks, fingers on her cheek as she takes in Sarah's torn, bloodstained t-shirt.

Sarah looks down at herself and then back at Alison and freezes with her mouth slightly open.

Rachel takes a step forward.

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you," she says, putting on a warmth she's never heard in her own voice before, "but Beth's at the hospital. She… attempted suicide. Sarah was the one who-"

"No," Alison interrupts, hand creeping up her cheek, turning so she's facing neither of them. "No, she can't have. Beth wouldn't- She's smarter than that."

"Alison," Sarah says as she puts a cautious hand on her arm.

Alison whips around with a speed that's somewhat terrifying and Rachel steps back instinctively, wanting to tug Sarah with her but just watching as Alison looks her up and down and seems to fully take in the blood on her clothes and bare legs.

"Paul," she mutters so quietly it's almost inaudible.

"What'd he do?" Sarah demands.

There's a fire in her eyes that has Rachel touching her forearm. "Sarah…"

"He talked to her tonight," Alison says, a slight shrillness to her voice as if she can't quite believe it. "Alone, he said he had to talk to her alone… I should have stayed with her."

"I'm gonna kill him," Sarah grits out.

A look passes between her and Alison as if something might be said about Sarah's tryst last summer but nothing comes of it, Alison instead nodding and then thanking them for letting her know. She tells them she has to get some sleep before the flag raising, disappearing back into her cabin before Rachel can think to say anything empty and placating as one is supposed to do in this situation, and then suddenly Sarah's tearing off the porch for the trees and Rachel doesn't know what to do but chase after her.

Sarah, it turns out, can _run_.

Rachel, as she already knew, cannot.

By the time she catches up her ankles are bleeding where plants and twigs snatched at them and Sarah has Paul pinned to a tree in his boxers.

" _Sarah_ ," she chastises, trying to catch her breath, glaring when Sarah finally turns around and loosens her arm across Paul's chest.

"Five minutes," Sarah says. Her eyes flash and Rachel understands the importance. "Just give me five minutes."

Rachel replies in a curt nod, backing up just enough to not be held accountable should anything happen and also wanting to be close enough to the cabin to hear if anyone wakes up. The last thing they need, on top of everything tonight, is for a child to bear witness. She tells herself she's listening for sounds of wakefulness and not at all paying attention to Sarah whisper-shouting at Paul as if ignoring _all your bloody fault_ and _Beth could die, you fucking arsehole, do you care about anyone_ makes her any less complicit in this.

She steps in as Sarah seems about ready to truly claw his eyes out and gently pries her off of him, holding her by the shoulders as she continues to lunge at him as he brushes bits of bark from his skin.

"This isn't something we need spread around," she says low at Sarah's ear, easing her clutch as she feels Sarah's muscles begin to relax. "The last thing Beth needs is to be camp gossip. And the last thing _you_ need is to get sent home for a physical assault."

Sarah nods, turning into her with the unguardedness of a child. She smells coppery and of sweat and Rachel wishes it churned her stomach, anything to tell herself she's holding Sarah Manning and it doesn't feel right.

"Go back to bed, Paul, and don't say a word," Rachel says over Sarah's shoulder.

He hasn't spoken at all since Rachel's been here and she realizes this _is_ his girlfriend, hopefully surviving in some hospital bed, and they should probably be showing him the same compassion they gave Alison. But then he glances at Sarah with such care and Rachel's stomach muscles tense, remembering again what he did and why Sarah stiffens at the look.

She releases Sarah knowing full well what she's aiming to do. Paul takes the punch like he knows he deserves it, and Rachel takes Sarah back to their cabin to get cleaned up.

/

Rachel was aware, of course, that Sarah's cabin is a mirror image of hers, but until she's actually standing in it, rifling through Sarah's suitcase while the shower runs, it doesn't fully occur to her how strange that is. She'd reached for the doorknob on the wrong side, for example. And Sarah cries in the washroom on the opposite wall.

After Sarah dresses in the clothes Rachel pulled out, sweatpants and a Ramones t-shirt that surprisingly isn't full of holes, they slink back out to the porch to sit on the wide steps.

Sarah clearing her throat is the first time either of them have made a noise since returning to the cabin – maybe they were both hyper-concerned with waking any of the children, tiptoeing through their sleeping bunks, or maybe Sarah's choking on the same awful panic that has Rachel wishing for an oxygen mask before making the hospital connection and wanting to torch her thoughts.

"How long until we can get rid of this night," Sarah asks, voice soft and rough at the same time.

Rachel hesitates on the words before checking her watch.

"It's almost three," she says.

Maybe they'll go to the flag raising today.

Sarah shifts her face like something inside her caught on a loose gear. But she accepts the answer, staring hard out at the wet grass, the picnic tables where it seems they once sat as different people. Rachel wants to tell her it's possible to come through this unchanged but can't even put the words together for herself.

 _My mother-_ she goes to say.

Her mother was- she should say her mother was beautiful. (But Sarah's beautiful.) She should tell Sarah her mother knew everything there was to know in the world, was smarter than her father, could recite entire books word for word – but then her mother didn't know how to climb out of her sadness. Or how to say goodbye. (Sarah looks at her and she swears she sees her mother's hazy eyes.)

 _Have you ever lost anyone_ , she wants to ask, but she knows the answer.

Orphan. A story that begins with loss.

She doesn't know how long they sit there before Sarah presses into her, hair wet and curling from the shower but a different kind of cold from before. Rachel glances down at her bare arms; wonders if she should offer her jacket. If Sarah would even accept.

"I don't want to think about it anymore," Sarah whispers.

Rachel's eyes sting. "I'm sorry, Sarah. It… It doesn't work like that."

No, it plays on a loop inside the mind: a personal picture show with the images all stretched out, warped for an even sicklier effect. Each facet of the moment blown up to the extreme and rolled over on the tongue so many times it should be worn smooth – but the sides are still jagged, sour where they cut the skin.

 _I was nine_ , she tries to say. _I found her in the bathtub. No water._

She stiffens as Sarah's hand takes hers but finds herself easing into it, immediately trying to commit to memory the heat of her soft skin and the length of her fingers and the way they both fit.

 _She'd swallowed all the pills that were supposed to make her better._

Sarah's thumb strokes a gentle path down the curve of Rachel's knuckle.

"You're going to get through this," Rachel promises, voice catching.

"Rachel," Sarah says; breathes. "There was so much blood. I didn't- Shouldn't we have known? Been able to stop it?"

Rachel thinks of the book sitting inside on her bedside table, passages underlined in her father's dark pencil. How her mother had taken one look at it and tossed it on the floor. He knew; he knew; he knew – and he gave it to Rachel instead, no explanation, because he knew there'd be an aftermath.

"If someone wants to escape, they will do anything in their power to make it happen. No matter how hard you try," she says with her eyes fixed on the shadowy figure of a bent tree.

Sarah exhales beside her, warm against her neck.

"Maybe I shouldn't have punched Paul," she mutters.

Rachel's lips pull into the slightest smile. "No, that was definitely deserved. If not for this then for- for a lot of things."

It's not quite a laugh – it's wet and it breaks and sounds like the echo of the tiniest sob – but it still directs a small amount of warmth back to Rachel's chest as she hears it.

Sarah glances at Rachel's watch but frowns at where it sits in shadow. Rachel angles it into the moonlight, saying, "Half past three."

She wonders if this night will drag on forever.

She wonders how it will feel when Sarah lets go of her hand.

"Are you really gonna stay up all night?" Sarah asks, voice a fraction of what it normally is. "It's Friday today, I know you have canoeing in the…"

Rachel moves her thumb in their shared grasp so it runs along the apex of Sarah's wrist.

"Until the bugle," Rachel says. "And, obviously, after as well."

"Okay," Sarah says.

Rachel tries not to lose her breath; to hold onto something solid. She doesn't know how to circle back from this. _I've grown up and around the loss of her_ , she wants to say, but she can't equate Beth with loss – not yet, not when there's still a possibility this won't be what takes her.

A tremble runs through Sarah's body and she tucks herself closer to Rachel, as if by giving Rachel the worst of it she can somehow make it through this night. Give, Rachel thinks. I'll take. I can take. She could spend the next three hours folding each shiver into her bones to keep them someplace steady if it would give them the outcome they want to hear.

She thinks, abstractedly, of Camus. _There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart_.

She hopes.

For once, she hopes.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: this chapter contains some vomiting as well as (obvious) references to a suicide attempt. it also veers into slightly nsfw near the end.**

/

Sarah notices the bruising of her knuckles as the sky finally begins to lighten, echoing the muted bluish-purple swell of her skin. It tightens in her chest for a moment – she thinks, at first, it's some part of Beth she forgot to wash off, before realizing there's a dull ache that accompanies it and she presses her fist into the wood of the porch to heighten the sensation.

Outside of nausea and a chill that won't leave her alone this is the first thing she's felt in hours.

(Outside of the heat of Rachel still sitting firm beside her.)

"I should have thought to ice that," Rachel says when the movement of Sarah's hand catches her eye. It breaks the long-growing silence and her voice is hoarse.

"It doesn't hurt," Sarah says, stretching her fingers out over her thigh.

It doesn't, really. If she doesn't look at it she can't feel a thing.

Rachel tuts softly and shifts her grasp in Sarah's other hand, their palms now a fraction closer than the past half hour. Sarah's been keeping time by these tiny movements, telling herself it's easier than trying to read Rachel's watch, mostly just not wanting Rachel to realize what a terrible mistake she's made in spending the night on the splintery steps. Each shift Sarah expects her to let go. If anything, her grip's tightened.

 _The sun's coming up_ , Sarah wants to say, swallowing and taking in the way the bruise-colored sky coats the tops of the trees and smudges the shadows into something a little more bearable.

The bugle will sound soon; cracking open the morning, hurtling them into the aftermath.

(Mostly, Rachel will let go of her hand.)

Rachel says it for her, a murmur. Their hands bump against Sarah's thigh as if punctuating the sentence.

It won't be long before they'll be forced to move through this as if nothing happened – she can't imagine smiling or fielding any of Quinn's comments but she also can't imagine having to tell them, that someone they know was sad enough to try and-

She looks down at her knuckles to make sure it still isn't Beth's blood.

She's not even sure how she'll tell Felix.

S would know. She'll call and ask for her first, and S will have some quip about her being in trouble already but…

She suddenly wonders what Beth's parents were doing when they got the call; if they were sleeping, if it woke them and if they could feel, just by the sound, what awaited them upon answering, in sad middle-aged pyjamas as they fumbled for the phone. She realizes she knows nothing about Beth's parents. They're divorced, maybe. So one would find out a sick five minutes before the other and still not be able to do anything.

She hopes they care; she hopes they drive all night with tears in their eyes.

Rachel shifts next to her and it's only been ten minutes but the sky is a completely different shade, a scorching pink veining out across orange. Sarah thinks vaguely of the sailor's warning and curls her fingers back up into a fist.

"Eight minutes," Rachel says softly, "to the first bugle."

Later Sarah will think of the way Rachel's grip tightens just enough to mean something here, equating her fingers to claws when the daylight burns, but for now she turns just enough to see a sliver of Rachel's jaw and her pale lips and has to swallow her guilt for wanting this night to exist as anything else.

"I don't think I'll be able to…" she starts to say, hesitating as Rachel's spine straightens.

"There's no other option," Rachel says. Her words are hard in a way that Sarah decides to see as strength. "You have children to care for. Let that be your only thought."

Sarah internalizes it and tries to pin it in place inside her, needing it to act as a lantern to follow through the haze of this day. She has children to care for. She has people who need her to be exactly who she was yesterday and the day before that, and she's biting hard on it as the bugle bleats out across the camp and as she and Rachel finally break apart to wake their girls, hands cold, keeping it at the front of her mind through showers and clothes and dragging them all to the flag raising because she doesn't know what else to do.

She and Rachel stand near each other with their groups and pretend they don't see Alison across the horseshoe, laser cut smile as she sings with Beth's sleep-filled girls and her own. _This is undignified_ , Rachel whispers to Sarah in the middle of a terrible song, and they both have to fight to keep it about singing at the crack of dawn, neither wanting to comment about the way Alison's white teeth could tear through her face any second now.

If Beth's kids weren't without their counselor it really could be any other day at camp the way everyone's carrying on. Sarah wonders what they've been told, about being left in the middle of the night; if they were told anything at all or if Alison just showed up and told them to be ready for the flag raising in however many minutes.

Sarah braided Afsheen's hair in front of the sink this morning and there had been a moment where Afsheen stared at her through the mirror for longer than comfortable, as if she could see, from the way Sarah pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth, that something happened overnight. Just a moment. Sarah curved her bruised hand away from the mirror and Afsheen went back to brushing her teeth and it was over, but Sarah's still wondering if she knows. If they all know and they're all too scared to ask about it.

On the walk to breakfast she pictures them all awake in their bunks last night as she and Rachel sat out on the porch, listening in a stricken silence. Did she say anything that would have told them? Did Rachel? She can't remember.

She can't even remember coming back to the cabin, but she knows it happened and she knows she showered because there's a smudge of red on her shampoo bottle still sitting pretty in her caddy. That's what the night feels like: a smudge of red. A smudge of red between the trees and the loss of feeling in her fingers.

She's sitting next to Rachel again in the mess hall at the empty middle part of their table, a cup of tea somehow in front of her, pancakes on her plate that she doesn't remember taking. A glance at Madeleine doesn't tell her anything about them.

Rachel's drinking black coffee and staring at Sarah's bruised knuckles like they're some indication of the day to come, and then Paul walks by their table with a marred cheekbone and Rachel stiffens as Sarah inhales. He doesn't look at either of them. It's almost as if nothing happened and Sarah wonders if this is how he's going to survive the day.

(She wants to talk to him. She wants him to acknowledge it. She wants-)

Her hand curls around the cup of tea and it feels too much like home, entirely its purpose, but heavy in her stomach in a way she'd kill to smother.

(She wants someone to say Beth's name.)

"He should have put ice on that," Rachel says, mostly to herself.

He's at his table, sitting with Tony, joking about whatever, the bruise almost a shadow in the strange fluorescence.

Sarah scrapes her nail down a groove in the table. Rachel watches and swallows.

 _Punching him didn't change-_ Sarah starts to imagine saying to Rachel, but then Raya scoots her way down the bench and has something to say about Quinn and Sarah's actually glad to have this to deal with today. She has children to care for. She has people who need her. It's a mantra now, swimming in her cup of tea with each cold sip.

There's no space to think of anything else.

/

Tennis offers Sarah a chance to slip away to phone home with its proximity to the squat administrative building, but she finds herself hesitating as she watches her girls practice their swing.

What would she even say? Nothing that wouldn't have Mrs. S up here in two and a half hours, harping on about trauma as she drags Sarah's entire troubling childhood behind her. Sarah would be home and back in counseling before she could think to say goodbye. Even if S somehow decided to let Sarah work through this on her own she's still not sure if she's allowed to mention it at all – especially after threatening Paul within an inch of his life.

She's been telling herself she just has to get through today, but now that she's alone, Rachel and her kids in canoes somewhere up the lake, it's hitting her that there's going to be an After.

After Beth.

After Beth lives, she tries to tell herself, but even then it isn't something that will just disappear; Beth will come back or she won't but everyone will find themselves different on the other side of it.

Sarah reaches for a handful of grass to tear out of the ground but only finds herself holding gravel. She wonders if she'll be pouring Beth out of her shoes like sand when she gets home; if she'll find strands of Beth caught in the teeth of her combs. She thinks of Felix sitting on her bed with the God's Eye and pictures telling him how she can still feel the slick weight of Beth's body in her arms every time she flexes. She wonders if it will be like this the rest of her life. She drops the gravel.

Quinn comes stomping over a second later, hair a cloud of its own, and drops to the ground beside Sarah likes she's trying to take the world down with her. There's a bench, Sarah wants to say, but then Quinn might ask why Sarah's sitting in the dirt instead, and she doesn't have an answer that would make it sound understandable without giving everything else away.

"What'd you do," she settles on asking.

Quinn has the kind of scowl that only ever exists to replace guilt. "Kept smacking butts with my racket," she mutters. "Not my fault they're all so big."

Sarah probably would have seen that if she'd managed to take anything in, but all she seems to have gathered from the past ten minutes of staring at the tennis court is that one of the fuzzy yellow balls has been slowly doing its best to escape into the grass. She makes a face that might be somewhere close to disappointment. Quinn sighs.

"Don't you ever get tired of this?" Sarah asks, turning in time to catch a whisper of something across Quinn's face.

Quinn shrugs where Sarah expects a snarky reply and it only adds to the sickening eeriness of the day.

There was a workshop they did, during orientation week, on how to be a positive role model, and Sarah considers that this would be a good scenario to use those empty tools. _What are your goals for the future_ , she's supposed to ask. _How can I help you realize your potential._

She'd fully believed this shite last year, taking notes and memorizing wording, as if the perfect set of questions could save a kid from themselves. She really did want it to work – she wanted so badly for there to be a formula to turn into the kind of person she needed when she was a kid. _Take an interest_ , the director had instructed, laser pointer trained on the slideshow's grinning clipart. No one mentioned kids could see right through you.

"You look weird today," Quinn says, turning so Sarah gets the full force of her frown.

"I'm wearing mascara," Sarah replies tonelessly. She'd put it on so she wouldn't cry, but she's not even sure she could now. Everything feels… compressed.

Quinn leans back to take it all in. "What, you trying to look pretty?"

Sarah makes a weird noise in her throat as she scrambles to find a kid-appropriate response but then Quinn jams her hands under her legs, adding, "My mom doesn't let me wear makeup. She says it makes me look cheap."

 _I'm gonna punch your mom in the face someday_ , Sarah wants to say.

"I don't think anyone should be policing girls' appearances," she says instead, pushing her palm into the gravel.

Quinn jiggles her leg, frown slightly pensive. There's a second where Sarah thinks she might actually say something decent, for once, but then she's staring at Sarah's knuckles and asks, "What happened to your hand?"

The kids might actually put it together, Sarah realizes, between her hand and Paul's face. And if any of them connect it to Beth's sudden absence…

She doubts they'd see anything more than some love triangle bullshit and sort of preemptively hates that anyone could think Beth would leave over _that_ , but then obviously it's better than the alternative. She'd rather they call her a home-wrecker and think Beth weak than have to realize the extent of Beth's sadness.

"I uh, nearly fell in the shower," she tells Quinn, doing her best to look sheepish. "Punched the wall trying to stay standing."

"You're an idiot," Quinn informs her, but she's smiling a little, a shine to her eyes.

Sarah wants to tell her she'll never need makeup to be beautiful. She wants to tell her to harness her fire, that she could do anything, that the world won't know what hit it, but she knows Quinn would shut her out so quickly for any of it. Just stay happy, Sarah tries to will her. Stay angry. Whatever keeps you from getting sad.

She tries not to react at all when Quinn's fingers ghost over her bruised knuckles.

For a moment she sees Quinn as an adult, reaching down to tend to a scraped knee with the forced blank face of someone trying not to let on to how bad it is.

"Idiot," Quinn reiterates.

It's gentle like the fingers she pulls away, curling them tight against her thigh. Sarah pretends she doesn't notice so Quinn doesn't have to change her soft expression.

/

Apparently it _is_ possible for thirty kids to comfortably fit into the arts and crafts cabin, despite Sarah's preliminary assumption that there wouldn't be enough chairs let alone elbow room.

Sarah comes late, by Alison's definition, so it's her girls that get split between the two tables, filling in the spaces between Alison's poised eight year-olds and the nines that still all look sleep-deprived and a little lost. She wonders as they settle if the kids reflect their counselors. Then looks to Quinn and hopes to god they don't.

(The girl Beth was comforting at the lake a few days ago is in long sleeves again, ready to cry in a way Alison seems to be overlooking. Sarah thinks of Beth's arms before she can steady herself against a filing cabinet. She's _nine_ , there's no way, but she looks so sad, and…)

"I hope you weren't expecting paper mache today," Alison says, suddenly appearing next to Sarah. "With thirty kids that's just unreasonable."

Sarah wasn't expecting _anything_ today, except maybe for Alison to show some microscopic sign of having experienced last night, and since that's clearly not happening Sarah wouldn't even be surprised if the earth opened up and swallowed the camp whole. Her eyes are only open right now because of a lingering shock; this is not a day for expectations.

"Are you just running two groups now?" Sarah asks kind of numbly.

Alison is two steps too close to be comfortable but also seems a hundred miles away with whatever planning's happening in her mind right now and Sarah can't even find it in her to shift herself out of this corner. Who would have thought the easiest conversation she'd have with Alison this summer would be after… this.

Alison pulls her fingers down the length of her ponytail, eyes on the kids as the art specialist sets up today's project.

"Apparently. There'll be someone coming soon to take over for however long-" There's a heavy pause and then she plasters on a smile and says, "It's all being sorted out."

Sarah presses her teeth into her top lip and tries to find anything to say that will fit into the strange neutral veil Alison's cast over the whole thing.

"So we're weaving, huh?" she says, finally taking in the tables.

Alison's smile settles into some level of comfort in talking crafts as she corrects, "Basket-making. Emily mentioned we had all this raffia left over from a donation so it seemed like the obvious choice."

Sarah looks at the crinkly, papery ribbon-like stuff piled up in front of the girls and gives a slow nod. She has no idea how they'll make any of this into a decipherable form, but okay. As long as they're focused on something. It beats watching them smear paste all over their skin.

Alison heads over to help the art specialist and Sarah decides she might as well take a seat at the table Rachel always claims, obviously not going to be of any assistance with this one. At the very least she can deepen some of the graffiti with a thumbtack someone carelessly left on the tabletop, maybe even fixing up the curse word that's been mostly scratched out. This place could use some humor. She could really use the distraction.

She's about halfway through emphasizing the heart around a pair of initials when she notices a kid standing at the edge of the table, and thinking it's one of hers kinda grunts in acknowledgement before looking up to see it's a nine year-old. A quiet-looking one, freckles and dark eyes, hair tucked behind her ears.

The kid grips the table like this is some great feat and then Sarah takes in Alison's focus on a mess at the back of the room and realizes it's an act of bravery as the kid inches a little closer.

"Where's Beth?" she whispers, eyes impossibly big.

Sarah swallows. Pushes the pin into the wood. Glances to Alison again like they're about to be thrown in some dungeon for even breathing Beth's name.

"What have they told you?" she whispers back as her heart races.

The kid opens her mouth and then freezes as Alison clears her throat and is suddenly right behind her, nudging her back to the tables with a stern look to Sarah.

Sarah doesn't even know what she was going to say; either the kids got a lie or they didn't, just waking up to find Alison in charge and no sign of their own counselor, clearly not going to have heard the truth. She's not going to be the one to stab them with that. She can't even tell her own mother.

The kid watches her from her busy table while her fingers fumble with the crinkly shit as if Sarah might blink out a response in Morse Code if she stares long enough and Sarah wonders what kind of games Beth played with her kids – if she taught them to look for answers in secret places or if this child just picked up on it on her own.

She wouldn't put it past Beth to do that, actually. Let them know the world holds secrets and give them the tools to unearth them. _This is what you need to look for. This is how you dig it up._

She thinks Beth once mentioned wanting to be a cop, or Paul mentioned that she'd said it, or Sarah dreamt it up in those months following coming home with six tons of guilt sitting in her chest. She could see her as a detective. Or a spy, maybe, working both sides, leaving strategic clues in her wake. Sarah wonders if she should have been looking. If Beth would even think that far in advance.

(She hasn't been able to ask if anyone found a note. She kind of doesn't want to know; what it would say, or what it wouldn't.)

(One outcome says Beth planned it. The other says she didn't. Sarah hasn't let herself consider either.)

There's a drop of blood on the table now and she realizes the thumbtack's in her fingertip, unable to even feel it. Alison slows to a stop and gives her a disapproving frown.

"You know you could be helping instead of fooling around," she snips.

Sarah means to say something snappy but just stares back with an ache in her chest.

 _How can you stand it_ , she wants to ask. _Pretending nothing's wrong. When we still don't know if she's-_

God, she could be thinking of a corpse and she wouldn't even know it.

Alison yanks the thumbtack out of her skin. Sarah's eyes are wet.

"Stop it," Alison hisses. "Don't. You _can't_."

Sarah nods, wipes her tears, but it does nothing for the burning or the lump in her throat. Alison shuts her eyes and then there's something soft when she opens them.

"I'm sorry it had to be you, Sarah," she murmurs, bending down to ensure she's not overheard.

She takes in a sharp breath and Sarah suddenly understands that Alison had expected to be the one to find her; had prepared herself for the inevitable, and then it wasn't her at all, and she had to hear it from someone who probably doesn't even know Beth's last name.

Beth was- Beth _is_ -

Sarah can't even understand that kind of everything.

 _I'm sorry_ , she wants to say. It sounds like a funeral in her head.

Alison's hand is cold as she stops the trembling of Sarah's lip.

Get through the day, Alison seems to be urging her. But there's an After, Sarah wants to tell her, as if she possibly doesn't know this herself, having stared down the end so far in advance it probably feels like she caused it. How can they get through the next hour. How can they get through the next five minutes.

Alison walks away.

/

Rachel sees Paul once more that morning as he's leading his boys across the soccer field, heading out to tennis with a stoicism that hitches in her chest. His cheek seems more like a shadow than anything against the overcast sky and she thinks again of Sarah's hand, somehow taking the brunt of her own anger in what Rachel's sure is a reflection of how most things go in Sarah's life. She just seems so much like self-destruction. Rachel can't stand it.

Last night she'd expected- They'd just sat in silence. She'd chased Sarah through the woods and found her with Paul pinned to a tree and that made sense, the need for action, but they came back to the cabin and Sarah just sat there. Sarah just held her hand.

Destruction would have been understandable, after cleaning off all that blood. Rachel expected to continue running, to keep pushing forward, pushing against it, for Sarah to be unable to slow down.

This is the wrong response.

Rachel doesn't know what to do with it.

(Her father cried, at first. Moaned. _Fell_. Right there in the hospital, on his knees like a martyr. Rachel wanted to slap him.)

(She didn't. She picked him up. She bit through her tongue.)

 _You know that feeling like you're drowning in it_ , Rachel had wanted to say at breakfast, but Sarah was vacantly cradling a cup of tea and Rachel had to focus on the acrid taste of her black coffee to stop her hands from trembling.

She looked… There was no lipstick, no sharp pull of her mouth, but she looked _so much_ like Rachel's-

She looked like that first year in Canada.

Like the cold, empty kitchen. The windows rattling in the wind. Toast burnt on the counter and Rachel trying not to make a sound.

(Don't set her off, her father had said. Be good for her while I'm at work.)

And then Paul walked by and Sarah looked as if she might run after him and Rachel wanted to tell her this is not something she should feel guilty about, this is just what happens when boys let go of the girls they love, they get what they deserve, but Sarah would see herself as the fault for that as well and Rachel couldn't do that to her. She could barely leave her to take her girls to the lake.

"Do you wanna hear a joke?" Clementine asks on the walk to lunch, and her voice is light, but from the look on her face Rachel can tell she's picked up on something serious passing through the counselors.

Has anyone told Beth's children where she went? Rachel saw them with Alison earlier, all ten trailing behind her like one large sullen shadow. There was an empty place next to Alison at breakfast. Rachel tried not to look.

"Sure," she says, unable to even curl her lips into something close to a smile.

Clementine's walking right beside her, having jogged to make it to the front of the group and leaving Julisa and Isabella C. behind. Her hand bumps against Rachel's as if she might consider taking it but Rachel knows her hands are still cold, ice from letting go on the porch this morning, and Clementine settles on grazing the band of her watch.

"Okay," she says. "So. Why do ducks have flat feet?"

Rachel considers taking back her _sure_. "Why?"

"To stamp out forest fires," Clementine says, a smile stretching her lips as Rachel frowns.

"I don't-"

"And why do elephants have flat feet?" Clementine continues.

"Why," Rachel says.

Clementine decides to risk it, curling her hand around Rachel's fingers. "To stamp out flaming ducks."

She grins and Rachel lets out a small chuckle.

"That's clever," Rachel says.

"My dad told it to me," Clementine replies as she swings their arms. "Wanna hear another? He has lots of jokes; he tells me in the car. One time I laughed so hard Coke came out of my nose and there's still a stain on the carpet."

"I… think I'll sit with this joke for now, thank-you," Rachel says, but she's smiling a little, somehow not minding the stickiness of Clementine's hand in her own.

It feels momentarily like a tableau of siblinghood, or as much as she imagined from the books she read when she was younger; Clementine smiles up at her quite pleasantly and her curls bounce with each step as she moves their arms and Rachel wonders, briefly, what it would have been like to possess a sibling of her own. Would she be softer? Would she know how to care in that teasing way?

She thinks of catching Sarah on the phone a week ago, voice gentle and warm as she sought comfort from someone who knew her enough to know how to provide it.

There would be someone who had witnessed the same events as Rachel; who would understand, without asking, what certain words or images meant to her. They'd see a tube of lipstick crushed on the tile and know.

Sarah's lucky. Sarah can phone home and someone will be there to let her cry.

Rachel tries not to react when Clementine lets go of her hand, running into the mess hall lunch line before she has a chance to dismiss her. Her face pulls slightly but she catches most of it, twisting it into a reaction to the menu, conscious of every part of her body as she moves into line behind the rest of her girls.

It's pasta salad today. Everything seems congealed, cardboard, but she takes a portion regardless, knowing she has to put _something_ in her stomach. Even if Beth's seat next to Alison remains unfilled. Even if she catches sight of Delphine at her table and it's like spotting a ghost.

She sits next to Sarah because she doesn't know how to do anything else, dropping down hard and too fast and nearly slipping off the bench completely before Sarah puts a hand on her back to steady her. The touch burns; Rachel tries not to think about it. Not today.

"How was canoeing?" Sarah asks. It comes out easy but she's staring into the depths of her tea.

Rachel wants to tell her she considered flipping her canoe just to try to shake the numbness, but it was only a momentary thought and she wouldn't have done it and it feels too obtuse to say out loud anyway.

"Fine," she says.

Sarah nods. She seems to understand the word's intention.

Rachel can't think of a question to ask in return.

They both have a plateful of pasta salad in front of them but Sarah ignores it where Rachel busies herself scraping it all away from the edges in a perfect circle. She's heard certain people respond to grief by over-eating – she wonders what that must be like, needing to fill yourself, when she feels entirely stuffed by the heaviness of this already. And then she wonders if this could be considered grief, and if she should ascribe that word to a situation that may or may not end in loss.

But surely either way there's a loss here – she can't imagine seeing Beth again in any capacity and the thought lodges itself sharply in her throat. Her eyes water. She hurries to blink it back.

Sarah's hand is on her wrist, soft.

( _She'd cut her wrists, Rachel. Walked into the lake._ )

Rachel inhales.

"We came to Canada when I was eight," she says, the first thing to come out of her mouth.

It surprises her; she's not usually one to offer up information, but Sarah considers it and meets her eye and puts forward her own _twelve_.

She pictures Sarah at twelve years old, all scowl and wild hair, not unlike Quinn who's sitting sullenly at the end of the table. Maybe they moved in summer, maybe it was warm and yellow, but Rachel imagines her standing in snow, staring angrily at a slush-filled street. Nothing about Toronto ever feels clean.

"I hated it," Rachel says, smiling when Sarah does.

She'd been miserable; always wet, always cold, hiding in the toilets at school so they wouldn't be able to stare at her. Give it time, her mother had said. And yet.

"Me too," Sarah says. She toys with the string of her teabag. "Didn't think it'd ever feel like home."

They hold eye contact and Sarah's face is unguarded, soft where Rachel expects obstinacy, neither going to mention how much it feels like home now. Rachel's spent over half her life here; the girl she left overseas seems like an entirely separate person. _I used to write letters to her_ , she considers telling Sarah. _In my head. To let her know how terribly everything changes_.

There's a sudden weight on Rachel's other side and she looks over to see Sahar pressed up against her, having scooted down the bench from where she'd been sitting with Marlow. Sarah gives Sahar a little smile. Sahar glances to Rachel before smiling back.

"Clementine wants to know if we can play outside for quiet hour," Sahar says, taking a bite of the apple she brought with her.

Rachel's not sure if she'll be a better or worse witch today all things considered and finds herself watching Sarah's bruised hand finally acknowledge the fork.

"We'll be outside today," Sarah offers, and Rachel can't help but hear it as a plea whether it was intended as such or not. "The girls want me to braid hair. And make bracelets. Uh, _they_ want to make bracelets. Not me. I'm rubbish at those for some reason."

Sahar's smile grows in excitement. "Could you braid my hair?"

She pulls the length of her dark hair over her shoulder, the silky-smooth tresses shining under the fluorescent lights.

"For sure," Sarah says. "If Rachel brings you guys out."

Rachel stabs her fork into a piece of pasta and tries not to think about the ease of her name in Sarah's mouth. How it sounds, almost, like she's been saying it forever.

"I'll allow it," she says with an overstated sigh.

Sahar beams in gratitude and then leans around Rachel's back to fully look at Sarah, who catches on and shifts as well. "Maybe you could teach Rachel how to braid," she conspires. "She's terrible."

Sarah muffles her laughter with a hand, raising her eyebrows at Rachel before agreeing to it. Rachel pretends to ignore them both and shoves pasta in her mouth. Absolute cardboard. It's no better than chewing sawdust.

"It's nice weather, at least," Sarah says with a lift of her shoulders, and Rachel realizes she hadn't even noticed.

Everything's felt so entirely grey she was half convinced it was raining; she can't imagine having to stare up at a blue sky after a night like that. She'd snuff out the sun if she could. Anything to pull it back to the kind of dreadful weather this day deserves. Sleet. Hail. A thunder to tremble in her bones, harsh and heavy as it should be.

 _I'm sorry_ , she wants to say. _I miss you_.

Beth. Of course. But it had been sunny the day she found her mother too.

/

It's warm, apparently; Rachel's girls are all in shorts, spread out in the grass with cards and books and paper, several in the trees that make up their imaginary house, smelling thickly of sunscreen and sweat and Rachel still can't tell if the sun's out. Maybe she'll burn. Maybe it would feel like _something_.

She's been doing her best not to notice that Sarah's wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants she changed into after last night's shower. Sarah sits on the other side of the picnic table, cross-legged and braiding a girl's hair (Daniela, Quinn's apparent nemesis) with Madeleine and Quinn on her left, and somehow looks serene in the warmth of the afternoon – lips pressed together in concentration, fingers moving swift and gentle.

She doesn't live with her sister, Rachel remembers. She wonders how Sarah leaned to braid so well with only her own hair for practice.

(Rachel cut her hair before her tenth birthday. It never held a curl after that.)

"That's what I want my hair to look like," Sahar had said when Sarah started braiding Daniela's, watching Sarah part the hair down the middle for twin braids.

Sahar's been watching with captivation as Sarah finishes the second French braid and continues to nudge Rachel to ensure she's also paying attention. They could very much be doing something – Rachel could be reading and Sahar could be making one of those bracelets that occupy Quinn and Madeleine and a few others in the grass but instead the focus is on Sarah's expert fingers and Rachel can't stand it.

She can't stand sitting here with cold hands as Beth- she doesn't even _know_. As Beth stagnates. As Beth either is or isn't.

Sarah catches Rachel's eye just as Madeleine asks Rachel, "What colors do you want?"

Rachel pauses, unsure if she should be reacting to the question in Sarah's eyes or the gesture to the rainbow skeins on the picnic table. And then she realizes what Madeleine's really saying and looks to the dirty bracelet around Sarah's wrist and her breath catches as she takes in the source of the copper-brown stains. _God, Sarah_ , she thinks. _How did we not notice before._

"Rachel likes silver," Sarah offers on Rachel's silence.

Her hands still as she follows Rachel's line of sight and then she's glancing back to her with wide eyes.

Madeleine flicks through the thread, unaware. "We only have grey and it's not that pretty. What about red?"

Sarah lets go of the strands of hair and the braid unravels in front of her.

"Sarah!" Daniela says as her hand clamps to her head to try and save it.

Sarah startles and looks between Rachel and Madeleine and the back of Daniela's head and then manages to pull out an apology as she grabs the hair to start all over again. "It slipped," she excuses. "Don't worry, it'll be better the second time."

"Not red," Rachel tells Madeleine, who frowns a little but moves on to other colors.

"White?" Sahar says. She points at a pearly skein and then at the lilac one next to it. "That one too, it's pretty."

Quinn looks up from the mess of knots whose end she has taped to the table in front of her. "Give her black too, like Sarah. She seems pretty dark."

Sarah rolls her eyes, focus still on Daniela's second braid, and Rachel takes the opportunity to give Quinn a particularly sharp look. She has no idea why Sarah seems to favor this child. (She does, actually. And is grateful she never knew Sarah when she was young.)

Madeleine gathers the colors and then pulls out a greyish-blue for good measure. The bundle looks, unbearably, like Sarah's knuckles, skin tightened white amongst the bruise as she grips the strands of hair. At least Rachel will have something to burn when the summer's over. She can't say she'll ever wear it.

"Let me measure," Madeleine says with the unwound black.

Rachel dutifully holds out her wrist and can't breathe as Madeleine's hot fingers graze her skin.

"Nearly there," Sarah says of Daniela's braid when a hand comes back to check.

"It's gonna be beautiful," Sahar says of both the braid and the bracelet.

Quinn snorts. "Gonna be ugly 'cause it's Rachel's."

Madeleine turns and slaps her.

Everyone freezes – Rachel expects chaos, expects raised voices, Quinn to retaliate, someone to say _something_ , but a slow smile creeps out across Sarah's face as she turns her head to ignore it and it seems to signal to everyone else that it's over. It's done with. Quinn eyes Madeleine like a stepped-on cat but goes back to her terrible bracelet. Madeleine smirks to herself. Sahar throws her weight into Rachel's side and Rachel, shocked, laughs.

She cackles and no one says a word.

They're sitting here _braiding hair_.

There should be consequences. There should be an aftermath. Sarah should be falling apart and Rachel should be keeping it together and someone should unblur all the lines and let them step back to someplace where they can make sense of it.

(Just give it a couple deep breaths, her mother used to say. Rachel doesn't know _how_.)

The braid finishes and Sahar takes her turn, leaving Rachel with no one on her side of the bench. She should be happy; she should bask in the personal space, not finding herself wishing for even Evie to come join her simply for the body heat. She should stop watching the bloodstained bracelet around Sarah's wrist as if it might come back to life. She should breathe. She should breathe.

She should-

She barely makes it back through the cabin to the toilets before the vomit comes up. Wet on her chin, painting the sink nearest the doorway. Her knees drop out underneath her and she clings to the edge of the counter with her face pressed to her forearm. Eyes shut. Mouth stinging. Her teeth chatter.

Breathe in, she wills herself. And out. She focuses on the coolness of the air hitting the back of her throat. Everything tastes like bile.

Footsteps hit the floorboards a few minutes later, soft and unlike Sarah's before Rachel remembers her boots are still drying on the porch from last night.

Sarah crouches down beside her, a hand on her back.

"Sahar's braid," Rachel manages to gasp out through another roll of nausea.

"Madeleine's finishing," Sarah says. Her hand rubs circles through Rachel's shirt. "You should see the nurse. You're scary pale."

Rachel lowers her chin so her forehead's pressed against her arm and forces herself to open her eyes. Sarah looks terrified; Rachel hates herself for doing that to her.

"You know we can't afford another counselor out right now," Rachel says. Her voice is surprisingly steady.

Sarah's mouth opens helplessly but then she nods and exhales and runs a hand through her hair in frustration. "At least lie down for a bit? I'll watch your kids."

Rachel relents with a shiver. She can't look away from Sarah's fearful eyes.

"Let me clean you up," Sarah says, pushing off the ground to grab paper towel.

She wets it and drops down again and her touch is gentle as she wipes Rachel's chin, a hand smoothing back Rachel's hair. It's a gesture Rachel hasn't felt since her mother and she hopes Sarah blames the wetness in her eyes on just having vomited.

Sarah gets her water. Sarah takes her hand to help her up and doesn't flinch when she spits into the sink.

"This is disgusting," she says dryly. Sarah chuckles.

"We've all been there," she says. "At least you managed to stay cute."

Rachel's mouth opens slightly with a wave of something that very much isn't nausea.

Sarah flushes in the silence and clears her throat and starts moving them out of the washroom with a gruff "Lie down, all right?" and seems more than happy to focus on getting Rachel to her room before heading back to clean up the sink.

Rachel decides not to mention she could have made it without holding Sarah's hand.

She also decides not to acknowledge the ache it birthed in her when Sarah let go.

/

Rachel doesn't sleep so much as stare at the top corner of her window for thirty-five minutes, focusing everything on trying to remember a passage word for word and berating herself when she slips up.

( _And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night-_ )

Her mother would recite full pages; the entirety of books. She'd stand in front of the couch with gusto and perform each sentence with so much feeling Rachel often wondered if her mother had written them herself, curled up amongst the cushions still sleep-soft and malleable.

( _These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes – how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I…_ )

There was such a tempo, such a rhythm. Rachel would tap her fingers. Her mother would laugh; would gather her golden hair in her hands and let it fall and the sun would stream through the lace curtains and Rachel, in her innocence, believed this was something that could go on forever. That she would never hear of Canada. That she would never lose.

( _I feel. I- feel. How shall I negate this world whose-_ )

She was such a foolish child. How could she not know better? How could she not understand, at six, at seven, that these things are only ours to lose someday?

( _Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is-_ )

Thirty-five minutes of forgetting the words. She tells herself it's easier than forgetting what's happened, forgetting how Sarah trembled against her on that rock still covered in Beth's blood. She needs to know they made it through.

( _Mine_.)

She needs to know it's possible, if not for herself then for Sarah, who looked at her in the washroom like she'd just shattered across the linoleum. Sarah who has the same painful look in her eyes as she returns Rachel's kids before the next activity, a hand on Rachel's arm as they part. Rachel nods and takes her girls and doesn't look back. She tells herself Sarah doesn't expect her to.

It doesn't quite hit her at first, as she settles her girls on the bench in the rec hall, that she was supposed to split this activity block with the nine year-olds. Sarah would have remembered immediately; Sarah would have seen the empty second bench and placed half her girls on it to fill the room and wouldn't be staring at the emptiness now like it's somehow gotten the best of her. Rachel can't figure out how to look away.

"I thought we were supposed to be working on our thing for the talent show," Olivia snips as the specialist comes in with a forced smile.

Rachel wonders what everyone's been told; if the rest of the staff knows what took place or if they're all just operating under the knowledge that Beth suddenly isn't here anymore and her girls are currently stuck with Alison.

The specialist glances to Rachel with a second of helplessness and Rachel decides it's the latter.

"Sort of," the specialist says, her gestures smaller than usual. "Kind of an adapted program today actually. Mostly working on…"

Rachel tunes out, a stern look at Olivia, then heads for the bench she and Beth shared when they were both here for dance – it occurs to her as she sits down that that was the first and only conversation she had with Beth. She tells herself it can't be the last. For a moment she becomes the type of person who believes the universe doesn't work like that, and it's a comfort. Then she returns to reality.

Her girls are fine with the adapted programming, it turns out, all of them grinning at some point, no one mentioning it's essentially what they did with Alison's group two days ago. Maybe they too feel the chasm that opened up overnight; Rachel can barely see across it to confirm that yes, it's only been two days since Beth introduced herself. She wonders if that was a planned action – if Beth had a list of things to accomplish before- before leaving, and that handshake was also some form of apology.

 _Nice to finally meet you_ , she'd said. As if she had every intention of doing so, and then she did it, and the next night…

It came so quickly. Rachel can't imagine how much agony Beth must have brought with her to need that escape so soon. How long did she consider it? What was the final straw? And to do it in the lake, of all places- Rachel hates to read meaning into something that might have none but every small piece of it feels significant in a way she can't stand.

She doesn't even know the girl.

Why can't she remember that?

( _You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases._ )

She was never as good as her mother at memorizing. She was never as good as her father at reading aloud – it always felt too much like trying to wear them as a costume, pulling their skin over her shoulders and struggling under the weight. In Canada she developed a stutter. It took her father months to iron it out of her.

( _At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multi-colored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me-_ )

Up on stage the girls take turns playing out their greatest sorrows, faces each a mimicry of sadness they've seen on screens or on people they don't seem to believe real. Rachel wants to tell them no one weeps like that without feeling it carving out their chests; that it bends them at the knees and they reach out to catch themselves on anything. _Good_ , the specialist tells them. _Sierra, how are you going to help her_?

Rachel presses her palms against the bench, flattens out her fingers. In her mind she can see the open pages of the book and the words line up like soldiers. Her father's handwriting crowds the margins. It's all shapes, but she tries to push past it, clear the fog and find each letter she's forgetting, hearing what she does know echoed in her mother's voice even though her mother wouldn't even crack the book's spine.

( _You tell me… But you tell me- of an invisible planetary system_ of an invisible planetary system _in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus_ in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. _You explain this world to me with an image._ You explain…)

Sierra seems to believe helping Marlow means stroking her hair like she's some arthritic housecat. It's a soft touch, at least. Marlow continues to wail. Rachel continues to conjure up the open book, sentences cloaked in graphite, trying to step around her father's chaotic handwriting before realizing he's written out the last of it for her, the words she'd struggled to remember yesterday over that puzzle.

( _You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know._ )

(Her mother reads it all back to her.)

She shuts the book.

Her girls reconcile on stage. It isn't raining but she believes it to be for a moment, believes Beth to be sitting beside her, hand hitting cold air as she shifts to tell her to stay.

She can't find anything good in it taking this long for anyone to tell them whether or not Beth made it. It's half past three – surely Sarah must have realized this as well. She pictures Sarah sitting on the dock, watching her kids do laps to the buoy and back again, telling herself she isn't essentially staring out at a grave.

No one should have let Sarah go swimming today, not after being the one to find Beth. Rachel should have thought to switch with her. Or told Paul to, or one of the other male counselors, or even Cosima. Although Cosima likely knows; she can't imagine Delphine would be able to hold that in. Loving someone seems to mean sharing the worst with them.

"Did you like my scene?" Sahar asks, startling Rachel out of her thoughts.

The girls are all back by the benches now, gearing up for one last game before Rachel's supposed to take them to the fields. Sahar's snuck away to get Rachel's feedback and Rachel finds her heart twisting.

"I did," she says, taking Sahar's hand to give it a squeeze. "It was wonderful."

"I thought of you when I was doing it," Sahar says with a smile before heading back to the group.

It takes Rachel to the end of the game to realize Sahar had done some scene about monsters. And that Sahar was the one who faced them.

Fear, she believes, was the prompt. Of course Sahar would turn that into bravery.

/

Sarah has a hard, permanent lump in her throat by dinnertime. Cement, it feels like, dragging skin raw with each breath, undissolvable by tea or water or anything else she tries to force down. She sits next to Rachel again. She tells herself it's convenience.

Rachel asks about swimming in that vague, uninterested way of hers that Sarah currently appreciates, nodding when Sarah shrugs. They swam. Sarah couldn't stick a toe in the water. Three kids asked her to wrap them in their towels because she apparently does it best. (She swallowed back an aborted sob at the feel of their slick, cold skin.)

She'd thought smelling the lake again in their hair would churn her stomach. She doesn't know how to tell Rachel it made her some sort of homesick instead.

"You feeling better?" she asks because she wants to pretend Rachel's vomit and losing Beth aren't related.

She freezes. _Losing Beth_.

Rachel sees it in her eyes and touches her knuckles to Sarah's hand.

"Lying down helped," Rachel says. It's such a lie. Sarah can't call her on it because the lump of cement thickens.

She's not even sure what's on the plate in front of her – she'd followed her girls through the line blindly, hands reaching and taking by memory. Quinn sits on her other side tonight and keeps bumping her with her elbow. She's been close since touching Sarah's bruises; a constant, quiet presence, something Sarah would expect from Madeleine or Naomi, seemingly unfazed by her earlier slap and Sarah outright ignoring it.

She should have said something. She knows that, but she also really wanted to see if it would work – if Quinn would take it and learn from it and keep her mouth shut the next time. God knows Sarah learned that lesson young.

Green beans, she thinks she's eating. Wax. It all collects at the lump and it's a wonder she hasn't choked yet.

Rachel's eating too, moving slowly but efficiently like a programmed machine. Sarah doesn't have to ask to know she can't taste it either. She saw Delphine consuming soup earlier when taking her girls to the table and she wore the same blank expression. Like they're all barely trudging through.

Delphine has to have told Cosima – Sarah can't imagine she wouldn't, but Cosima hasn't arrived yet and Sarah hasn't run into her today and wouldn't even really know how to ask in front of the kids. She wonders if Delphine cleaned all that blood off alone. If anyone did anything for the mess they left behind the cabin.

"What's the last book you read?" Rachel asks suddenly, and Sarah feels Quinn stiffen at her voice.

Rachel pushes the corners of her mouth out into what might be a smile and Sarah realizes that it's a signal; that she's frowning, hard, to the point of her facial muscles hurting, and Rachel's trying to pull it out of her.

She relaxes her face into what she hopes looks a bit more pensive. And then has to reach for an answer to Rachel's question.

"Uhh, Wise Blood," she says, lifting her shoulders. Rachel tilts her head in surprise. "It was for school, I didn't really understand it. A lot of… religious stuff."

Quinn knocks into her arm. "Christian stuff?"

Sarah looks to Rachel and then to Quinn, not sure what to make of Rachel's interest or Quinn's concern.

"Sort of," she says. "A kind of backwards way of it, I think. I don't really remember my teacher's notes."

Rachel nods as if she'd like to listen to anything Sarah has to say on the topic but Quinn continues, frowning.

"Is this high school? Is it hard?" she asks.

"Not if you study," Rachel tells her as Sarah says, "It can be."

Quinn shifts her frown to Rachel for a lingering minute then places a look of consideration on Sarah, ending it with a decisive nod.

"It can be," Rachel echoes, but Quinn's turned away already.

Of course Rachel would have breezed through her classes; Sarah had that pegged from the moment she first saw her. Rachel could probably tell as well that first day that Sarah spent most of her time skipping class or in detention. They embody their stereotypes in embarrassing ways.

"Flannery O'Connor was criticizing religion," Rachel says quietly, stabbing a green bean and then dropping it again. "I'm sure you discussed the attributes of Southern Gothic literature."

"I'm sure we did," Sarah says, shifting in her seat. She's also sure she missed that day.

Rachel screeches her fork against the plate. "The grotesque, religious hysteria, slavery…"

"Listen," Sarah says, "I barely read the book. Tried to watch the movie but couldn't really get into it. I'm not really… Books aren't so much my speed."

Her cheeks feel hot, but she realizes she forgot about the lump in her throat for a good two minutes, and that was two minutes of not thinking about Beth. Remembering sinks her stomach to her knees.

Rachel turns on the bench so she's half facing her.

"That's fine," she says. "Don't worry about it."

Her head is tilted slightly, watching. Sarah isn't sure what to make of her contemplative expression. If there's anything to it other than needing a distraction.

"I liked Holes," she offers, quiet. "My brother made me read it."

Last Fall, after a month of brooding; he'd tossed it at her from the doorway and threatened to tell S about her vodka stash if she didn't read at least half of it. It was from his school library. The time before that, the weeks after Vic, he'd brought her the bloody Boxcar Children. _Remember when we planned to run away_ , he'd said. All soft and she couldn't hold onto her anger.

She misses him. It cuts in her chest.

"Sarah," Rachel says abruptly. She's staring over Sarah's shoulder, at the doors, and Sarah follows her line of sight.

"The director's back," she says. Heart racing.

He has the sleeves of his jacket rolled up, forearms tense as he searches the mess hall. He's at Delphine's table first. Sarah gulps back water. The two of them appear across from Sarah a second later and he motions for her to join him.

"Go," Rachel urges. Sarah hadn't realized she wasn't moving.

Rachel captures her fingers as she stands, tangling them in her own for a moment before letting go. Sarah does her best not to look at her as she leaves. She tries not to catch sight of any of her kids or Paul across the room or Alison stiff and straight with the empty spot beside her.

She follows Delphine. The three of them slip outside.

"Sorry I couldn't get back sooner," the director says.

They're directly under one of the yellow lamps and Sarah can't stand the unearthly glow it casts across his skin. Corpse-like, she thinks. Jaundiced. She looks to Delphine and finds Delphine watching her with perfectly round eyes.

"Beth lost a lot of blood," the director says, moving to push up his sleeves but just getting skin. "She's okay, but they'd like to keep her for a bit just to be sure."

"That's good," Delphine says. She grabs Sarah's hand.

"Good," Sarah echoes, unable to let go of the image of Beth collapsing in the sand.

That's where all the blood went; it's in the sand and on the path and in the dirt behind Delphine's cabin, staining the earth where they tried so hard to keep her talking.

But she's okay.

She's okay.

Sarah wants to tell Rachel.

The lump in her throat is the size of a fist.

"Her parents are with her now," the director tells them.

Sarah bristles; she thinks of something Paul said, of Beth hating them. They're the last people Beth would want with her right now. She'd want… she'd want Paul, of course. She'd want Alison. Sarah wonders if there's anyone else in her life or if it's as overwhelmingly small as it feels. Surely Beth has friends from school, from her various sports teams. Sarah wishes she knew who to call. She wishes Alison was out here right now. She wishes Delphine would stop staring at her like she's about to break.

"They'd like her to return to camp as soon as the doctor okays it," the director says, and he looks as pained by this as Delphine does. "To honor her commitments."

"That's bullshit," Sarah says.

Delphine shoots her a look. Sarah apologizes but they all know she's right.

The director wrings his hands and Sarah wants to ask him to take a few steps back into the shadows, to get out of this awful light. To make this feel even a tiny bit less like swallowing glass.

"This is no one's idea of an ideal situation," he says.

Delphine's shaking her head, soft and slow and terrible and Sarah wants to hug her and push her into the dusky shadows as well and can only snatch back her hand as the director leads them both back into the mess hall.

"We're so appreciative of everything you girls did for her," he tells them as they blink in the harsh light. "We'll be informing your parents tonight, at the Childs' request."

He says it and it sounds heroic. Sarah wants to fill his arms with the weight of Beth's drenched body.

He leaves them for the upper staff table and Delphine hesitates for a moment before leaving as well and Sarah stands helplessly in the mouth of the doorway, staring out at the crowd, unable to stop herself from nodding to Paul at the back of the room. He sags against the wall like waiting to hear was all that was holding him up, and then she finds it in herself to return to her own table.

"She's alive, she'll live," she whispers hard at Rachel's ear.

She drops onto the bench. Rachel presses her lips together, understanding this isn't a celebration.

 _Her parents are making her come back_ , she tells Rachel later, in the dusk as they're heading to the cabins. _Rachel, she hates them. I hate them_.

Rachel only briefly takes her hand and they stumble through the trees in silence.

/

Sarah sits on the picnic table to smoke. The girls could wake up and see her through the window at any moment, but she sort of wants that to happen; wants them to learn their counselors aren't infallible. Wants them to be disappointed in her.

What does happen is Rachel appears, in sleep-shorts and a weird silvery chemise, barefoot and joining her without a word. Just sliding herself onto the tabletop like she doesn't even mind the splinters.

Sarah exhales. The pack of cigarettes is balanced on her knee. Rachel doesn't reach out to take it.

It's Rachel's picnic table too; it's in front of her half of the cabin, it's her girls that would see Sarah smoking, it's her door that opened up to find Sarah cross-legged in the moonlight. She wonders if Rachel's ever going to ask why she always takes this one – why Rachel keeps ending up alone at Sarah's table, Rachel's girls filling those bent trees.

(She'd tell her, too. It's a stupid spider. Size of her fist, scared the living shit out of her last summer and she wasn't going to risk sitting on its home again this year.)

(Maybe the thing likes Rachel. She is a witch, after all.)

"Any one of those girls could spot you out here," Rachel says finally, sounding too tired to truly care.

Sarah brings the cigarette to her lips and watches Rachel's eyes follow it, lingering after the cigarette pulls away.

"You should join me," is all she says.

Like these aren't Rachel's to begin with, like she's been doing this for years. The truth is it still hurts her lungs. The truth is that's why she likes it.

She thinks about the first time she smoked them, after Paul grabbing her arm like he had anything worth saying, Alison's snake eyes on her so quickly she could feel the singe of her skin. It had been about Beth. She smoked to stop thinking about Beth. She went off to hide the smoke and found Beth.

 _I didn't know you smoke._

 _I don't, they're_ -

Rachel shakes her head.

Sarah stares at her without trying to hide it, open and sore, absorbing the milky softness of her skin and the shine to her slightly tousled hair. It's as if she rose from her bed without thinking and came straight to the table. Sarah didn't make a noise, so maybe she did.

Rachel holds her hands in loose fists like she might need to strike at any moment, and she's sitting in the same pose as Sarah, cross-legged, toes curled, a near mirror image on the top of the table. She's taking the brunt of the moon; Sarah could be her shadow.

It feels all of a sudden like that hazy Thursday night.

(Beth was a Thursday night. There are two Thursday nights. Sarah can't-)

The line Rachel said, about the dark. She tries to remember it – Rachel's watching her like she's some caged animal, a starved one in the corner who knows the lock is broken but can't turn away from the wall. Rachel's eyes search her. Soft. Merciful.

Sarah inhales smoke to the point of bursting then lets it all go.

She can hear Rachel's voice that night, silk in the prickling shadows, a heavy cloud around her.

"That thing you read to me," she says. Rachel's head tilts. "What did it mean?"

 _This darkness is my light._

Rachel's hand stretches out flat across her knee and Sarah instinctively looks to her own hand, the bruises just smudges in the dark.

"Well, the whole book is about absurdism," Rachel says, looking off to Sarah's left and into the trees. "The idea that seeking meaning in this world with all its variables is absurd and that we will never truly know. Ah, in brief."

"Light reading then, yeah?" Sarah says wryly.

Rachel's lips pull slightly into a smile. "Of course. The part I read to you was essentially… Are you familiar with the myth of Sisyphus? The rock up the mountain?"

Sarah shrugs, only now noticing the cigarette's burned its way down to the filter. She stubs it out on a knot in the wood of the table.

"Sure," she says.

They did mythology in at least one of her classes, if not a few. She remembers a rock the same way she remembers Medusa; it felt suffocating at the time, trying to imagine experiencing it. Being condemned to… well she supposes all myths are just someone being condemned to something, the gods either angry or bored or wanting.

Rachel nods and eyes her, head tilted, as if trying to glean what exactly she's retained.

"Well Camus equates Sisyphus forever pushing the rock up the mountain to the human condition, understanding the futility of his actions as the rock rolls back down each time," she says and Sarah frowns. "You know, we continue to seek out meaning, knowing we'll know nothing for sure and that even knowing can't stop us from dying. And yet looking past that, accepting that we won't know, that we live in ignorance, in a darkness, is freeing."

Rachel stops at Sarah's scoff and her hand comes out as if she might reach for Sarah's, falling short between them on the table.

"That's supposed to be comforting," Sarah asks. She can't relax her brow.

She can't even look at Rachel, who looks at her now like she's glass, a thin layer of ice across a lake just waiting to be cracked through the middle.

"My father bought it for my mother," Rachel says. And then she won't look at Sarah either.

Sarah gives her something between a scowl and disbelief, pushing herself off the table to stand in the dewy grass. "Your father's got some fucked up ideas on what a woman wants, no offence."

"She was-" Rachel starts, but then cuts herself off and looks down at Sarah like this is somehow her fault.

Sarah steps back, hands shoved in the pockets of her sweatpants, heel hitting a rock embedded in the dirt and hating it for stupid Sisyphus and the ache it spurs up her ankle. It was a boulder, she remembers now. All the guy could do was roll it up and watch it fall and roll it up and watch it fall.

"So was he saying that Sisyphus was okay with it? Just pushing that boulder for the rest of his life?" she asks.

"For eternity," Rachel corrects, pulling a knee up and leaning against it. "And more or less, yes. Happy, even."

"That's fucked up," Sarah says. "You don't…"

She holds the pack of cigarettes against her leg in her pocket, the flat edge soothing through fabric.

Rachel lifts her shoulders in a way that suggests she doesn't find it too unreasonable, and all of a sudden she looks incredibly small and defenseless in her pyjamas just hugging her leg.

"I think if you're truly miserable," she says, cheek to her knee, watching Sarah like a shackled bird of prey, "it can be comforting to believe there's no meaning to existing. That we just do, and there aren't any answers, and it _is_ absurd. That it's… a way out of being consumed by it, maybe."

It sinks into Sarah like an ice bath and she brings the heel of her palm up to her temple and then through her hair to try and drag it out of her.

She realizes as Rachel shifts and straightens up into something unaffected that she knows nothing about Rachel, that she's as much a stranger as Beth, and that maybe, in this conversation, in their conversation that Thursday night, Rachel was trying to tell her it could easily have been her Sarah pulled out of the water.

She finds herself staring at Rachel's wrists, the bracelet Madeleine made her so much a gash across the skin.

Sarah's own bracelet is still dark with blood that didn't wash off; she tried four times after noticing it, scrubbing in the sink with industrial soap as if getting it out could reverse the whole night before. Rachel noticed it first.

"I wrote an essay on it," Rachel says now, trying to undo the silence between them. "For my Philosophy class."

"We haven't slept," Sarah says, like this could excuse it.

She hates that Rachel put it into words she could understand. She hates that when she's stuck repeating grade twelve they'll say Sisyphus and she'll think of Rachel, sitting like a statue on a picnic table in the dark. She'll think of pulling Beth from the water only to have her collapse in the sand. She'll think of pine trees and the sickly scent of iron.

"Go to bed, Sarah," Rachel says. She has her legs hanging off the edge of the table and she looks tall, impossibly long.

She doesn't want the night to end. She wants to slap Rachel and have her stay and hear her explain everything Sarah couldn't get the first time around, somehow knowing how to find the right words to slip through the mud in Sarah's head.

"I'll just think of Beth," she admits.

Her hands are in her pockets again. She can still feel the rock underfoot and doesn't know why she doesn't move.

Rachel's lips press together in sympathy. "I know. Go to bed anyway."

Sarah never took a philosophy class, knowing it wasn't something she could understand, knowing it would all pass right through her without anything sticking. She'd have the names and nothing else. And even those would be in the wrong places.

"She's alive," Rachel says when Sarah doesn't budge.

"Yeah," Sarah says. Her voice is thin. "But she's coming back."

She doesn't know how long she stares at Rachel before Rachel leaves the table and comes over, hand firm on Sarah's back as she directs her to the cabin and up the steps. They stand outside Sarah's screen door for an unending minute. Sarah tries to listen to anything but Rachel's breathing; tries not to watch her mouth attempt and fail to form a single word.

Finally Rachel brings a claw of a hand up to Sarah's cheek, skin brushing skin.

"You'd find a way out of it, you know," Rachel says. "If you were Sisyphus."

It brings back the lump and Sarah's stuck with it in her throat all night.

/

It rains in Sarah's dream. She keeps trying to tell herself it wasn't raining the night before when she found Beth, but it was, and it stopped, and as she dresses she wonders what would have happened if there hadn't been a break in the showers.

Two options: she wouldn't have gone out and no one would have been there to pull Beth from the water _or_ Beth wouldn't have done it at all.

(There's a third; Beth would have done it another night.)

(There's a fourth. She'd have done it in the shower.)

(There's a-)

It's warm again. Sarah opts for cutoffs, runs her fingers through her hair. She hasn't washed off the mascara and it's starting to ring a smudgy grey, something she leaves for her girls to care about.

She realizes she hasn't worn eyeliner in three weeks. And suddenly there are two Sarahs, standing on either side of a long drive to the campsite. Maybe S saw her change through the rearview mirror; maybe that's why she kept glancing back, afraid she'd miss the switch.

Sarah wonders how she's going to fit back into that girl once the summer's over. If Felix will call her on it right away, the way her fear sticks out at sharp angles.

"There's a bug in the shower," Naomi informs her, toothbrush in her mouth.

Sarah kills it. Crushes it into the tile. Wipes it up like it wasn't there at all.

They thank her for it, and she pretends she isn't thinking about it the entire walk to breakfast, the way it died so quickly under her fist. It's a _bug_. And then it's a metaphor, and she gets to the table to find Rachel sitting at the opposite end like they've never so much as talked before.

"Sit next to me," Quinn says. She has waffles and Sarah has waffles and it makes sense. Zohal joins them with an omelet.

They're across from Madeleine and Afsheen, the two of them chatting about the ropes course, excited about the off-location trip, reminding Sarah that she's staying behind to oversee fishing with Tony. Worms and hooks. Still, it seems better than standing around in the hot sun while kids tower thirty feet above her.

"Did Rachel like her bracelet?" Madeleine asks, interrupting her own conversation with a tap to the table.

Sarah stops vaguely pushing around her waffle and glances down the bench, where Rachel is so far away she might as well be a different person. She _looks_ different. Cold. Her shoulders square.

"As much as Rachel can love," she says, and Quinn snickers.

Madeleine narrows her eyes at Quinn then looks back to Sarah. "I thought you guys were friends now. Or was yesterday just some break in the universe?"

"Likely," Quinn says around a bite of waffle.

Sarah almost repeats it; Rachel won't even look at her, hyper focused on her bowl of what looks to be yogurt like Sarah's suddenly Medusa. Was it the whole book talk? Was it making fun of her dad? Sarah left her thinking things were good, that Rachel touched her cheek and they were _good_ , went to bed with her heart racing, eager to think about anything but Beth.

"We are," Sarah says. She glances to Rachel again and then drops her shoulders. "Something like friends, at least."

Quinn grins. "I've got a lot of those. Just ask Daniela."

"Yeah but no _actual_ friends," Madeleine says, and it might as well be the slap for the expression it puts in Quinn's dark eyes.

"Madeleine," Sarah warns.

She doesn't have anything else, but Madeleine takes it with contrition.

Sarah goes back to poking at her waffle, half thinking it doesn't have enough syrup, half convinced it's too sweet for her to eat regardless. (Her sister would be disappointed.) She looks up again at the sound of heavy footsteps and wishes she didn't as Paul passes by her end of the table, cheek definitely bruised, eyeing her like they've just come back from war together.

"I told Alison," he says without stopping.

She catches his jaw tightening and a forcefulness to his easy movements and wants to tell him it wasn't his place. Or that he shouldn't have had to do that. Or that he doesn't even know, and she can't tell him anything past Beth surviving. He's gone before she can think to open her mouth.

"Told Alison what?" Quinn asks. She frowns at Sarah and elbows her, as if this might get her question answered quicker.

"Nothing," Sarah says. She pulls back her hair and exhales. "Just the… some schedule thing for today."

It wasn't his place. She should have been the one to do that. She should have been the one to tell Alison that it happened, not freeze up and throw it all on Rachel. Maybe the shock's worn off and Rachel's now back to her usual self, keeping Sarah at a stiff arm's length.

"Are you and Paul still all kissy-kissy?" Quinn asks with a sneer on her face.

Naomi looks over from the other side of Afsheen, eyes still sleep-creased despite the hour and a half lie-in afforded to them by it being the weekend.

Sarah rolls her eyes. " _No_ , Quinn, we're not still all kissy-kissy."

"But you were?" Madeleine looks at her with a maternal disappointment that plays across Naomi's face as well.

"No," Sarah says, grabbing her cup of tea. Her hand curled around it accentuates the bruises and she hates that they're the same color as Paul's. "Definitely not."

 _He has a girlfriend_ , she wants to say, but she can't even _think_ about Beth without nausea rising up.

"Boys suck," Naomi says, entranced by the puddle of syrup on her plate.

Sarah lifts her tea and gives her a solid _amen_.

If she has any advice for them it's to figure out how to hold onto themselves so they never lose even a piece in another person. She's had eighteen years and she still doesn't know how to come out whole.

"I never want a boyfriend," Zohal says, and Sarah wants to tell her it's the best way to stay intact, to avoid leaving herself in someone who doesn't deserve her.

Boys never deserve the girls who love them. She _hates_ Paul. He talked to Beth after karaoke, Alison said; talked to her alone, could have said anything, a single word to push her over the edge, and he wasn't the one to pull her from the water. He wasn't the one to beg her to stay awake. Sarah should have punched him a second time.

She wants to march over and demand to know what he said to her – drag it out of him like fishhooks, letting them all barb his throat. He'd cry. He'd have to know what part he played in all this. She needs to know what part he played in all this.

(And what part she played, and why Beth let herself be pulled, and…)

"That's the girl from the senior camp," Madeleine's saying, pointing at soft red curls at the table with Alison.

Sarah didn't notice her come in, but suddenly Beth's kids are with a new counselor, all as uneasy as Alison, eyeing this wolf in sheep's clothing like they're trying to find the teeth. Gracie, Sarah thinks her name is. The one who comes to campfires to take care of Krystal.

The rest of Sarah's girls turn to look, faces a mix of confusion and distrust. She can't blame them; it's a face they only vaguely recognize, maybe having seen her before in previous years on out-trips to the senior camp, like some smudge of a face in a nightmare. They only know that her presence is a disruption.

Quinn asks it first, tight and angry. "Where's Beth?"

They should have come up with a story by now. Maybe they did, actually – Sarah skipped the staff meeting this morning, not wanting to get out of bed at the first bugle. She can only imagine what they'd say: Beth went home sick, Beth had a personal emergency, Beth needed to leave camp for something.

"She has a bad case of the flu," Rachel says from the other end of the table, looking only to the girls and avoiding Sarah completely. "She's in the hospital for dehydration. She'll be back when she's feeling better."

It satisfies the full length of the table, Rachel's girls taking it in as well and Quinn softening beside Sarah as the news hits her. Sarah can see them all trying to process an illness and the sympathy it births; some of them knew Beth better than she does, and she wishes she could promise Beth will be okay the way the flu seems to assure.

Rachel must have made it to the staff meeting, then. Sarah doesn't know why that bothers her. Maybe that it seems like she went to bed last night and decided she was done grieving, just flicking it off to get back to her regular ice queen duties. Maybe that anything she had with Sarah seems to have been shut out with it. It's a coping mechanism, clearly, but then Rachel doesn't appear to be affected by it at all, eating her toast with calm fingers.

"We'll make Beth cards after the trip," Madeleine decides.

Quinn presses her elbow into Sarah's side. "You going to make one too?"

What could Sarah say in it? Glad you survived? Sorry for stopping what you were so desperate to do you tried it at a camp full of kids? She can't even picture drawing some cheerful crayon bullshit on the front without chewing through her cheek. She'd probably just draw the lake and hate herself.

The girls are looking at her expectantly, like the validity of the idea rests on her confirmation.

"Of course," she says, biting out a smile. "I think Beth would really like that."

She'll come back to her sadness smothered out of her once again, to a lie perpetuated by a cabin full of cards that hold no real value, faced with the same people who couldn't keep her from trying to escape in the first place. She'll go through the same exact motions. She'll swim in the same lake. Sarah can't understand how a mother could force that on her daughter – could send her back to the place that almost killed her, knowing nothing's changed but a new failure tucked under her belt.

That's the worst way to love someone. That's the worst way to try to get them to stay.

Sarah tears a hole through the wet center of her waffle, everything in her tightened. Six more weeks. And they're supposed to be able to survive it.

/

Sarah's probably the least qualified person to be running fishing, but Tony seems confident enough, trusting Sarah with the Styrofoam container of worms while he hands out fishing rods.

They have ten kids for the next two hours, most of the campers who stayed behind opting for the more exciting wilderness games or whatever arts and crafts bullshit Alison's apparently leading with Gracie. (Rachel must be on the out-trip this week; Sarah didn't see her after lunch, but she can't think where she'd be at camp. Certainly not with Paul in the woods.)

"And then when you're comfortable casting, you're gonna get a worm from Sarah and find yourself a spot by the water," Tony's saying, grinning at Sarah like he knows what he's done.

The kids, mostly boys and two girls from Beth's group, turn to Sarah now, holding their rods with the hooks tucked onto the fishing line. There's a general air of cockiness from the boys that Sarah wants to stamp out and an awe from the girls and she realizes she's definitely going to have to touch worms to prove that a girl _can_ touch worms without gagging like she'd love to do.

Just the thought that the worms are wriggling around under the Styrofoam has her queasy. She's hugging it, but it's mostly to prevent herself from chucking it into the water.

"You okay with that, Sarah?" Tony asks.

He has that guy smirk, the one that waits for her to seek help and need him as a savior. She wonders if guys know they do it or if it's just built into them, the assumption that women will always come to them, that they'll always need to play the hero. Even the good guys. Even her brother, sometimes.

She clutches the container tighter. "I love worms. No problem."

It's worth it for the smile she gets from one of the girls, and then Tony has the kids spaced out along the edge of the water to practice their casting without hooking anyone.

They're at a part of the waterfront Sarah hasn't seen before in the daylight, full of brush and weeds and a small strip of sand that trees somehow still grow their way through. There's a half-sunken dock a little ways up the lake, she knows. Paul took her there once. She'd thought it would be a great place to skinny-dip and then he kissed her neck and she's mostly tried to forget about it.

"What happened to your hand?" Tony asks when the kids are self-sufficient, coming over to sit on one of the tiny camping stools.

Sarah glances down at the flimsy one next to him and decides sitting and possibly falling seems better than standing with the worms for the rest of the afternoon. She eases herself onto it and settles the worms in her lap like a sleeping baby.

"Uh, punched a wall," she says, frowning at her knuckles. "Accidentally. Almost fell in the shower, so."

He smiles, tongue between his teeth, and shakes his head. "Sarah Manning, you're a crappy liar. And I have eyes."

Obviously anyone spending more than a minute with Paul would put it together, but she'd really hoped people were dumb enough to at least overlook it. She sighs.

"Paul," she says.

Tony nods, his smile even more amused. "I just wanna know what happened. I'm sure he deserved it."

"I thought you guys were friends," Sarah says.

He's all sprawled out, taking up an impressive amount of space, and Sarah's _I ride the subway_ anger comes back in a brief wave before she stretches her legs out as well. Her boots are finally dry, still stinking of lake water, still stinking of Beth, but at least they give her the illusion of taking up more space than she really is. That's why she bought them; she wanted people to hear her footsteps and get out of her way.

"We are," Tony says. "That's why I know he deserved it. So what happened? Did he mouth off? Get too handsy?"

She eyes him, still not sure what exactly he knows about last summer besides the fact that she and Paul spent a considerable amount of time together. Guys brag, she knows, so Paul could have told him everything, neither of them caring that he had a girlfriend, or Tony could have picked up on Paul's wandering hands and the way he always sat with her at campfires and just figured it out himself.

She wishes she could erase it from everyone's memory. Most of all her own, but there's a scar on her back that won't let that happen. There's Beth's blood on her bracelet. There's a ghost now.

"Just pissed me off," she says, lifting her shoulders.

He doesn't believe it, but he seems to garner from her expression that the true story isn't something he wants to hear.

A kid comes running over a second later, hook flying wildly through the air, and Tony has to reprimand him before he can come get a worm. And then Sarah finds herself burying any thoughts of Beth in the damp, squirming soil, pulling out a writhing worm with her bare fingers to the delight of the boy.

"Gross," he says in approval, observing as Sarah carefully pushes the worm onto his hook.

It continues twisting even after being pierced and she feels sick, unable to look away until the boy slowly walks back to his spot in the sand.

"You okay?" Tony asks. "You're looking a little pale. I could take over worm duty, if you want."

She takes in a breath of sharp woodsy air and shuts the Styrofoam lid with a silent apology, willing her blood flow to return to normal as she gives Tony a smile.

"Nope, I've got it," she tells him, straightening her shoulders.

Watching him hook the worms with no remorse would be worse than doing it herself. At least she can tack this on to a long list of awful shit she's done; her guilt was tailor-made for this sort of thing.

It gets a little easier, enough to smile when the girls come over, enough to ignore the way the worms that don't get picked curl up deeper in the soil every time she retracts her hand. It's even fine when someone finally catches a fish – the shorter girl, and it's a rock bass, Tony says, spiking and thrashing in anger.

Sarah can look at the fish and file the guilt away with the worms, going so far as to volunteer to unhook it when Tony can't, cutting her hand on the spiked top fin but only holding tighter, palm stinging, working with a lump in her throat to remove the hook from the corner of its mouth.

They put it in a bucket of water. Sarah dips her hand in the lake and watches the ribbons of blood thin out until they disappear. Everyone crowds around the bucket, staring with wide eyes, rods abandoned.

Beth is going to come back to her own small bucket of water, Sarah thinks.

She sits down with the First-Aid kit and bandages her hand and watches the kids watch the fish.

Someone wants to name it. Sarah dumps it back in the lake five minutes later, willing it to be smart enough to swim far away. It gets caught again not long before they're due to head back, and Sarah takes it off the hook, and this time it cuts her fingers instead.

She'll come to dinner later with two sets of bandages. All her injuries are on the same damn hand.

/

It's the second time in her life Rachel's had to ride a school bus, the first being a sixth grade field trip to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra that ended in everyone teasing her for enjoying it so much. She's fairly certain she didn't vomit then, but the entire ride to the ropes course after lunch has her convinced it's an inevitability and she boards the bus to head back to camp absolutely dreading what it will do to her stomach.

She'd sat alone on the ride there, near the front, close enough to Delphine to make it clear they're ignoring each other in case she decided to say anything. She prepares for the same on the way back, takes the same seat, and then finds herself boxed in by one of Sarah's girls, two more taking the seat in front of her.

"Someone's popular," Delphine says as she slides into the seat across the aisle.

She has a six year-old with her who seems ready to sleep and Rachel's envious, frowning at her over Madeleine's head.

Madeleine catches the look and only wiggles in further, pinning Rachel to the window, a terrifying grin on her face that Rachel wishes she could wipe off with peroxide. Maybe it would melt the rest of her features as well and Rachel could pretend she's sitting here without anyone staring at her.

The bus starts up before Rachel can tell her to sit elsewhere. Delphine finally looks away.

It's the first time Delphine's spoken to her since Thursday night, and she might not be covered in blood anymore but Rachel swears she can still see it on her; can see her clean hands trembling, wearing sleeves of Beth that don't wash off.

Flat, dusty fields pass by out the window, and Rachel does her best to focus on this. It's only an hour back to camp. She can survive it.

"How do you like your bracelet?" Madeleine asks a minute later, tapping Rachel's wrist.

It was a mistake, bringing her girls out for quiet hour yesterday. Rachel knows this now. She should have shut them inside, drawn the curtains, forced them to nap or read or sit impeccably still in the dark.

"It's a good bracelet," Rachel says. It burns her skin.

There's no space between them to move her arm to the seat, aching to distract herself with the feel of the textured grey plastic, but her thighs stick where her shorts don't cover and it's enough to at least ground her.

Madeleine runs her fingers along the woven thread, admiring her own work.

Rachel can see echoes of the bracelet in the braids that pull back Madeleine's dark hair, and they look too delicate to have been Sarah's doing, too small and careful and deliberate. Rachel resists the urge to touch them. She won't find Sarah there.

She doesn't want to find Sarah anywhere.

"We're making cards for Beth when we get back," Madeleine says, and Delphine catches Rachel's eye at this.

Of course they are; of course they'd be young and altruistic and think this is something they can make better with kind words. Rachel can't imagine what Beth will do with a pile of cards that wish her well from the flu. _Feel better_. It sounds like a command.

(Rachel thought her mother was sick too, when winter first happened in Canada. She didn't make her a card. She looked the other way.)

One of the girls in the seat ahead of them says she's going to use glitter, a bodiless voice that has Rachel digging her fingers into the ridged metal of the window frame. Glitter stains. Glitter doesn't wash out. Delphine's arms could have been coated in red glitter.

"Sarah's making one too," Madeleine says. She looks at Rachel like it's a challenge.

Rachel averts her eyes.

"I'm sure she is," she says.

She doesn't want to have to think about Sarah; Sarah trying to find condolences, Sarah with glitter on her hands, Sarah playing along that this is just some illness the hospital can make better. That cards can make better. Than can be made better.

It ends, yes.

It ends in a bathtub.

It ends in people who should have known better _losing_ themselves in the aftermath, falling apart like Sarah and not knowing how to make it through.

"You should make one," Madeleine says. "Bring your guys to our cabin before dinner. We have a whole bin of art supplies."

Rachel swallows; studies her nails. There's another chip.

"That's very kind," she says. "But I think we can manage on our own."

Madeleine tilts her head, a very adult look passing over her face. "Are you sure? You know my mom says this sort of thing helps. She's a school counselor."

 _What do you know about it_? Rachel thinks of asking, before realizing what she means: that this will help _Beth_ , not help the people who were left here in her wake. They aren't talking about grief. This is just about the flu, and Rachel tries to steady her heart.

(She'd gone to a counselor for a short while, following the loss of her mother. She'd sat in a primary-colored room and played with dolls and refused to talk.)

(They'd sent her father home with a list of things to _bring up_. He never did.)

She wonders if they'll bring in grief counselors or someone to talk to for the people who were involved. There was someone who drowned on a vacation when she was in high school, a boy a few grades above her, and an entire room was set up for anyone who needed to talk. Everyone mourned so openly. The school flag remained at half-mast for months. And then one day they moved on, and Rachel wondered if it had happened at all.

Delphine has the child sleeping against her now, small lips pursed in a cherubic bow. Delphine strokes her hair.

The six and seven year-olds go home tomorrow, their two weeks up and another group coming Monday morning. Rachel wonders if Delphine misses them when they go; if they feel like her own children, especially now that they were here through Beth. It will be another group of little children that see Beth's return. None of this feels right.

She wants to ask Delphine about the aftermath. She wants to ask about the cleanup, about scrubbing her hands and heading back to bed. If she slept at all. If Beth's shallow breathing rang in her ears.

Her stomach coils and uncoils, the nausea a constant like the time her father forced her on a sailboat for some outing with a boss of his. She'd been told to watch the horizon; the bus only passes fields and scatterings of trees, and she thinks of the spray of the lake and the way the boss touched her shoulders.

She'd known her job was to look pretty. Her father had no wife to bring, and she was fourteen and understood how to let lipstick wear her. It wasn't the boat that had her nauseous.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Madeleine asks her.

It seems to be every child's curiosity and Rachel tries to think back to being eleven, to training bras and quitting ballet, and wonders if these things ever interested her. Surely she had crushes at that age. Surely there was more than just _I want to be her_.

She turns so she can look at Madeleine's face, fixed on her dark lashes. "No," she says. "I'm not interested in relationships."

She can see Delphine watching her, passive, just as motionless as the sleeping child. Madeleine's face shifts in surprise. The bus jerks over a pothole.

"Don't you want to get married?" Madeleine asks.

The girls in the seat in front pop their heads up at this, arms draped over the back of the seat as they join the conversation. Interrogation. Their eyes feel like a hot lamp held to Rachel's face.

"I want a successful career and a personal driver," she says with a lift of her shoulders.

It isn't apologetic. It sounds like her mother. She wonders, for the hundredth time, how her mother ended up with a husband and a child instead. The girls all look at her with awe.

"What do you want to be?" one of the girls asks.

Rachel pretends to consider it for a moment, even bringing a finger to her chin. "Something powerful."

"That sounds achievable, for you," Delphine says, and the girls turn at her voice.

There's a murmur of agreement. Rachel wonders if they equate _powerful_ with _bitch_ and then realizes she doesn't care; they can see her as whatever they like, as long as they recognize that there's power in her ability to choose.

She'll have a penthouse apartment someday, dark floors to pace across in heels. The city will be hers to observe and she'll make phone calls that change lives and she won't care at all, she'll be so poised, she'll be so much bigger than her mother could have ever hoped. She'll never speak to her father again. She'll exist only in the fear she sparks in other people.

The girls cling to her answer for another moment before moving on, the two sitting back down in their seat and Madeleine bringing out a half-finished bracelet she tapes to her leg to continue. The colors are soft: peach and yellow and mint, and Rachel wonders who it's for. It feels like such a stark contrast to the image Rachel's just drawn up in her head. It certainly isn't something she could ever tie around her wrist.

But then she didn't think she'd wear Sarah's bruise until Sarah was tying it on her, last night at the campfire, her fingers fumbling and smoke in her hair.

It's _embarrassing_. Rachel should have never let her get so close.

Madeleine leans into her slightly as if she can feel her tensing up, bracing herself against Rachel's arm. Her fingers work carefully. Quickly. It'd be like watching Sarah braid if it felt at all like the whole thing could come undone at any second, and Rachel wonders how Sarah manages to carry that through everything she does in life.

She finds herself digging in her backpack for her water bottle a second later, needing something to quell her nausea.

She'd owned less than a third of the items on the mailed out packing list, her father coming home one day with most of them, filling the living room with bags. A metal water bottle with its own hook. A heavy flashlight. A waterproof watch. Bug spray. Twin-size sheets. Even the backpack that sits at her feet now, full of pockets and adjustable straps. Everything has his touch on it. Everything feels like someone else's.

"I can teach you, you know," Madeleine says, as Rachel finds herself staring once again at the bracelet. "It's not that hard."

"Sarah can't manage it," Rachel says, thinking of what Sarah said yesterday while braiding, the table full of embroidery thread.

A smile creeps across Madeleine's face. "Well, Sarah has a specific skill set. That's not her fault."

She speaks of her like a fond daughter; niece, maybe. It's that teasing affection Rachel always saw in other families, and it's here with a child who has no obligation to be this kind. Rachel's not even sure her own campers will remember her name once the summer's over.

"I'd… I wouldn't mind learning," Rachel says with her eyes fixed on the bracelet. "When we have some time."

Madeleine stops weaving for a second to reach into her bag and she pulls out a rainbow handful of skeins, laying them flat across her knee.

"We have time now," she says. "Pick three colors. This one's an easy one."

Rachel eyes the spread, momentarily thinking of colors with a certain person in mind, before selecting brown and two shades of green. "Like the forest," she says.

Madeleine smiles approvingly, grabbing a pair of scissors and a roll of tape from the depths of her backpack and readying herself to set Rachel up with some bracelet making. Rachel only watches, regret instantaneous, smiling when Madeleine smiles, ignoring Delphine's chuckles as Madeleine launches into the tutorial.

At the very least Rachel will have a reminder of the summer that isn't distress. And, she finds, the end taped to her thigh, it's oddly relieving to have something to occupy her hands.

She's made half a bracelet by the time they get back to camp. Madeleine promises to teach her a dozen more.

/

Rachel quite purposely sits as far away as she can get from Sarah's group at movie night, abandoning her own girls and even accidentally choosing a spot at the side near Alison. Madeleine finds her still.

She's quiet, at least, settling onto the bench with more bracelet-making supplies, almost ignoring Rachel completely as if this is just coincidence. Sarah doesn't seem to have noticed, alone on another bench at the back of the room. Rachel takes this as a consolation. She tries to pretend Sarah's shell-shocked appearance doesn't stir anything in her.

 _Pull yourself together. It's over._

"Have you seen this before?" Madeleine asks as the movie starts.

She still isn't facing Rachel, turned enough that Rachel can only see her cheek and the corner of her mouth, but her expression seems friendly enough. Rachel tries to shake the thought that Madeleine's here on some agenda. Maybe, Rachel thinks, she's here because she actually enjoys the company.

But that would be ridiculous – Rachel doesn't entertain the idea for more than a second, and then confirms that yes, she's seen this movie before, when people still had VHS tapes. Jumanji. She owned it, she's pretty sure. She's seen it a couple times.

She'd been terrified of the spiders; she'd also secretly been terrified that she'd get pulled into a game one day, forcing her parents to forget about her. She was never sure it would take them very long.

Madeleine nudges her and is holding out a selection of skeins, a smaller amount than what she had in her backpack earlier. "Pick four," she says.

Rachel chooses the four closest to her: yellow, red, orange, and white. It looks like fire in her hand.

Alison glances back at them, disapproval on her face for something – talking, perhaps, and then softens slightly as she sees Madeleine knotting the ends of cut threads together to start a bracelet. Yes, Rachel feels like telling her, I'm capable of interacting with children. They don't all see me as a monster.

Three of them don't, at least. And she's not entirely sure she can count Marlow. Still. It's more than she believed could like her before she got here.

"This is a really cool one," Madeleine says, dropping her voice to a whisper when she catches Alison looking.

She demonstrates the weaving technique for a few rows, trusting that Rachel can follow along, and then hands it over with a small pat to Rachel's knee.

Rachel finished the last bracelet at dinner to Evie's delight and was admittedly a little disappointed to know she'd have nothing to occupy her during the movie so she's happy to take it, even though she didn't think Madeleine would continue with this quest. It isn't as if Rachel has anything to give her in return.

She looks over to Sarah again, just to confirm that Madeleine isn't over here as some sort of spy or part of whatever inane plan Sarah could have come up with. Rachel's not an idiot; she's aware Sarah's struggling to figure out why Rachel's suddenly distant.

Sarah's distracted by the counselor who's here to replace Beth, the conservative one from the senior camp who has already made friends with a few of Beth's girls. Sarah's glaring. Rachel understands, but it isn't this poor girl's fault. They had no other option. Alison couldn't play both parts forever.

Beth will be back soon, anyway. Sarah seemed so convinced of that.

"Her parents'll drag her back here the second she's stitched up," Sarah had said at the campfire, hot and angry at Rachel's ear. "IV and everything."

Rachel doesn't doubt it; Beth seems too hard to have parents that did anything but raise her within a strict set of expectations, more concepts of consequences than anything. Rachel imagines them tall. Beth isn't, but they feel tall. Rigid. Faces set in perpetual disappointment.

It's a wonder she has a boyfriend, but then maybe that's part of her armor.

Rachel thought that could help, once. That if she had friends, a boy to take her out in the evenings, her father would stop seeing her as some unfinished project left to collect dust. She dated two boys. Neither made her feel anything more than indifference.

"You messed up there," Madeleine whispers, pointing to the bracelet.

One of the colors is in the wrong place, hiding under the red. Madeleine reaches across Rachel's lap to fix it, undoing the last two rows, seemingly oblivious to Rachel's stiff posture at someone now contaminating her space. Rachel hates how children just _assume_ like this – that they're wanted, that they're harmless, that they aren't such wild things of destruction.

Madeleine pulls back and Rachel shifts a few inches down the bench.

Madeleine doesn't talk after that, and Rachel focuses on the bracelet instead of the movie, grateful for once to not get absorbed into the storyline. It isn't even particularly good. But the children enjoy it, more so when popcorn is passed around at a brief intermission, leaving kernels all over the floor. Rachel's shoes crunch as they leave later and she makes sure none of her kids attempt to bring any back to the cabins, thinking of Sarah's position on ants.

She doesn't watch Sarah the entire walk back.

She doesn't see how Sarah plays with her bloody bracelet, hands shaking.

She doesn't see the stumble that has Sarah glancing behind her, at Rachel, desperately holding onto the eye contact. Rachel breaks it first.

She has to break everything first. It's the only way.

 _You wouldn't understand_ , she thinks.

Sarah doesn't look back a second time.

/

Two days. Sarah doesn't hear from Rachel for two days. And then it's Monday night at the campfire, and Rachel comes up behind her, fingers ghosting through Sarah's hair.

It sends shivers down her spine.

"Here," Rachel says.

She drops something into Sarah's lap: a bracelet the color of the fire.

"I can't tie it on myself," Sarah says, too surprised to say anything else, but Rachel's already leaving.

Sarah has to get Raya to tie it on for her, who's perceptive enough not to ask about any of it. (Sarah doesn't have answers anyway. She has two days of silence and odd glances. She has questions of her own.)

She keeps her hand on the bracelet for the entire half hour it takes her girls to make and devour a series of smores, everything sticky and charred. It doesn't burn the way she expects it to. It isn't poison, and she wonders if Rachel thought of her while making it; if there are any answers woven into the zigzagged thread.

 _This is how I deal with grief, Sarah._

 _You offended me the last time we talked._

 _Beth's fine; you don't need me anymore._

But her fingers find nothing – just the texture of the pattern, no blood, no Beth, no secrets.

"It's pretty," Quinn says, dropping down beside her on the log.

She has a roasted marshmallow between her fingers, half melted and increasingly messy as she squishes and squishes it.

Sarah decides to ignore it. "Rachel made it for me."

Quinn crinkles her nose, exactly Sarah's reaction to the marshmallow, and down the log Madeleine makes some noise of confirmation.

"I've been teaching her," Madeleine says.

Quinn laughs. Sarah wants to as well, but somewhere across the fire Rachel's probably watching and she doesn't know if it would upset her or fuel her. She hates it, not knowing where she stands. She hates having known for a little bit even more.

If she could just _talk_ to her… But then she's not sure what she'd say, or what she wants to hear from Rachel either. If it was just the silence Sarah could compartmentalize it. But now there's a bracelet around her wrist and she has no idea how to even begin to figure it out.

She'd tried to talk to Delphine about it. Sort of.

She'd brought up a vague _do you ever just… lose your place in a person_ but then Delphine asked if she meant a book, chuckling, and the smile felt too strange after everything, and Sarah decided it was best just to drop it. She could have worded it better, sure. But then Delphine might have remembered when Sarah brought up the crush, if it's possible to go back before Beth, and Sarah doesn't want to be the one to drag everyone back there. She can barely think about it herself without feeling the lake in her boots.

It was strange relaying it to Mrs. S – Sarah called after the director did, letting someone else deal with the shock, and then just handed it over in clipped fragments.

 _She was in the lake. She cut her wrists. I pulled her out. Delphine called the ambulance._

Neither of them cried over the phone but Felix said S cried later, when she thought he was asleep, like some mournful elephant in her room. He sounded small despite the forced cheer. Sarah never wanted to hear him that way. _You saved a girl's life_ , he said. She reminded him she wrecked it a year before so it was only fair.

She wanted to tell him about Rachel, but she wasn't sure how to put any of it into words besides a soft _she stayed up all night with me_ that still wouldn't explain it at all.

She calls him again after the campfire, tucked into the trees with a cigarette, just to tell _someone_ about the bracelet. He doesn't quite get it and she doesn't expect him to. But he listens, hearing her exhale and maybe knowing that she's smoking and loving her anyway. He seems to miss her more this year than last. She doesn't want to guess why.

"Are you going to make _me_ a bracelet?" he asks.

"You don't want what I can make," she promises him.

He laughs. Agrees. She clings to the sound.

Four years ago at Christmas she gave him some shitty clay piece she'd made at school; an owl or something, hollowed out and deformed from where she tried to give it eyes. He loved it then. He was nine and already so much better than her at most things, but he treasured it. She's pretty sure it's still on his bookshelf.

She gets him birthday cards with monsters on them, a sort of throwback to what that clay thing became. Every year. Even though they're mostly for little kids, even though they sparkle or have giant googly eyes, he still acts touched.

"I miss you, Fe," she says rough into the phone.

"Miss you too," he says. "You giant sap."

She'll never tell him how it felt to pull Beth from the lake. She doesn't want him to know that sort of corpse-like heaviness is possible, to hold or to be. She hopes he grows up without ever finding out.

"So Rachel's…" he starts, leaving it there for her to finish.

She inhales sharp on the cigarette. It scratches. "A pain in my arse."

"Yeah, and you care about that bracelet, so spill."

So Rachel's someone who explained a book to her, and the next morning acted like she didn't exist. So Rachel makes her feel nauseous every time she looks at her. So Rachel was the one to find her in the forest, covered in Beth's blood.

"It's complicated," she says.

She can _hear_ him roll his eyes. But he leaves it at that, dutifully dragging the conversation elsewhere, and lets her go to bed without having to explain. He'll ask again later, she's sure. If it interests him he can't leave it alone. She'll probably come home to find a series of paintings of what he imagines Rachel to be stacked up in the basement, all hearts and fangs.

She dreams of just that: Rachel and hearts and fangs. Devouring. Blood down her chin. It doesn't scare her the way it should.

There are two bracelets on her wrist now, two scabbed cuts on that hand, greenish-purple bruises across the knuckles. She doesn't know how to hide any of it in the morning. If she should even want to. She can explain them all away – but then Rachel glances at the bracelet at the staff meeting, and that brief look is all she gives her.

Sarah starts to catalogue these Rachel moments in terms of things she'd tell Felix if she could tell him anything, needing the idea of him to anchor her to not demanding Rachel acknowledge her.

 _She looks at me across the soccer field. Maybe._

 _She ignores me completely at swimming even though Madeleine talks to her._

It's another day of Sarah trying to hold eye contact that Rachel refuses to give, so much like what followed the first Thursday night and somehow even worse, the way Rachel floats above it without a scratch, and it's a desperation that has Sarah catching Rachel outside of the cabins before dinner.

Their kids are piling out around them and Sarah hesitates, her hand on Rachel's arm.

"Yes?" Rachel says. It's a blade.

Sarah sees her with fangs. Devouring. Hearts. Devouring. She pulls on the stupid bracelet.

"Uh, just wanted to say thanks," she says, lifting up her wrist.

Rachel nods.

And then she has all of her kids and she goes, winding down the path into the thick of trees while Sarah stands dumbly at the base of the porch stairs.

Delphine would probably have something to say about this, or Cosima, who'd most likely think it's the universe righting itself. Sarah half considers talking to them at dinner before remembering any one of them could mention Beth and it's the last thing she wants to have to talk about. They could _ask_. Sarah could have to tell them. Delphine's been safe enough in that she was there, but Cosima…

It's easiest to eat her soggy meatloaf and stare at the block of ice that's replaced Rachel and pretend this is some dream version of her summer that's trying its best to be a nightmare.

"Everything feels kinda weird," Naomi says as they find a place in the rec hall for movie night.

Sarah agrees. She can't tell them why.

Delphine and Cosima have their new batch of tiny kids now, fresh terrified faces clustered like spores around them. Sarah decides it's best if she doesn't get to know a single one, thinking of Chloe and her soft blonde hair. They'll be gone in less than two weeks anyway. Everything goes.

Naomi sits with her brother. Madeleine, surprisingly, heads over to Rachel. Sarah isn't sure if she's supposed to see her as a traitor. Quinn sticks by Sarah's side, slipping her fingers through Sarah's bracelets as the movie starts.

The only bracelets Quinn wears are ones she's made herself.

"I killed a spider this morning," she whispers about halfway through James and The Giant Peach, the spider smiling onscreen.

Sarah says nothing until Quinn looks at her, quietly upset.

"It's only a movie," Sarah tells her, giving her a tiny smile until it's clear it isn't working. "Let the next one live, then. You'll get another chance."

"You sure?" Quinn says.

It's camp, it's filled with spiders, but this isn't what they're talking about. Sarah wonders how long Quinn's been this withdrawn. She can't even recall the last time she heard a cruel remark, to Daniela or otherwise.

"I'm sure," she says. She wants to say, _I'm sorry_.

She doesn't even know what happened. She doesn't even know how to ask.

Quinn pulls her fingers away from Sarah's bracelets and doesn't say anything else.

/

Sarah calls Felix again once her girls are asleep, updating him on nothing, and then stays at the picnic table even after she's hung up.

 _Mrs. S says I'm going to summer school next year even if I don't fail anything_ , he'd told her, still awake playing some video game. _She's sick of me hanging around the house all day_.

Sarah told him she'd be sick of him too, but she wishes he was here next to her, swatting at the mosquitoes she can't be arsed to flick off her skin and filling in the silences he always hates to let linger.

She's lonely. She couldn't tell him but he probably guessed it, telling her every tiny thing that happened in the past twenty-four hours like she actually cares. The worst part is she does; she misses home with a visceral ache, kneading the inside of her stomach with brass knuckles. She wants to sit at the kitchen table and drink tea and hear S ream her out for the state of her room. She wants to trip over Felix's bloody backpack.

She wants to see his smile, and sitting here in the dark it feels like that'll never happen again.

Eight weeks is an eternity. She still can't figure out why she came back.

A sound on the steps alerts her to someone's presence, and then from the shadows emerges a pyjama-clad Rachel who drifts over like her feet don't even touch the ground.

Sarah's sure she's dreaming at first with Rachel's face not puckered up all sour but then Rachel sits down across the table, leaning on her elbows, and Sarah can feel the air bristle from Rachel's soft breath.

"You're not sleeping," Rachel says.

 _You're not talking to me_ , Sarah wants to say. She shrugs instead.

Rachel rests her cheek on a curled fist, elbow braced against the weathered wood of the table. It's already leaving lines in the skin. Sarah hopes it scars and neither of them can say they forgot this in the morning.

"Are you still thinking about her?" Rachel asks.

Of course she is. Closing her eyes leads to Beth's marble skin, slipping through Sarah's weak hands and down into the dirt, everything slick with blood. No, the lake. It was the lake. It can't all have been blood.

She'd tell her, but Rachel couldn't possibly imagine what it was like. Rachel only saw the stain and then disappeared and Sarah can't see why she'd choose now to be concerned.

She's had _days_. Sarah can't even look at her.

"It gets easier," Rachel says. "It starts to feel less real."

She reaches out and her fingers brush the bracelet on Sarah's wrist, ice where they hit skin.

 _Like a dream?_ Sarah wants to ask.

"Almost like you imagined it," Rachel adds. She speaks to the forest. Her fingers leave Sarah's wrist.

 _I keep imagining Beth coming back_ , Sarah could say. It's a lie. She won't let herself think about it, because Beth returning means Beth _returning_ and Sarah doesn't know how to confront a ghost. She can't even chase her away in her dreams. She mostly just looks right through her, and it's like she doesn't exist at all.

"I'm not thinking about her," Sarah says.

Rachel presses her lips together, tight, but accepts the lie.

Sarah wants to ask her where she's been but she can't even put the words together. Rachel hasn't left. Rachel's been in her peripheral this whole time, silent and unflinching. Sarah could have pierced her with an arrow and she still wouldn't have said a word.

Why now? she wants to ask. Or maybe she doesn't. Rachel's hand darts out again and Sarah finally takes it.

She expects ice but finds heat instead, Rachel's palm on fire and soft where it attaches itself to Sarah's. It's a claw. It isn't, but Sarah tells herself that.

Rachel doesn't even look human in the thin veil of moonlight – Sarah can make out teeth where Rachel's mouth stays open and a strip of jaw that cuts across neck but the rest is liquid, shifting as Sarah tries to look at it, rippling where her eyes linger.

"I've been thinking about the rest of the myths," Rachel says.

Sarah doesn't want her to say anything.

Rachel asks, "What do you remember?"

It's like talking to a reflection, Rachel exhaling as Sarah does, their hands tightening together.

"Persephone," Sarah says. That pomegranate seed.

"The Underworld," Rachel says, and they're still holding hands, and Sarah hopes Rachel never saw it as anything other than freedom.

She had no mother to speak of when the teacher explained the story to them. There was a woman she'd easily leave, who would very much feel her absence, but Sarah knew what she'd do if there was a handful of seeds for her to eat. She'd been hit for less; this at least would end in escape.

She was so desperate to leave. She couldn't stand the way Mrs. S loved her, like there was nothing she could do to stop that.

"My mother wouldn't read that one to me," Rachel says after a silence. "I had to read it to myself."

 _Because she loves you_ , Sarah almost says. There's a look on Rachel's face that stops her.

Sarah remembers Medusa too, but she doesn't want to talk about snakes in the middle of the forest. She can't think about turning to stone. There was something hopeful about Persephone and she'd like to hold onto that, tight like she squeezes Rachel's hand and Rachel still doesn't flinch.

"Why'd you make me the bracelet?" Sarah asks.

Rachel's fingers curl. "Because your other one is stained with blood."

"I'm still not taking it off," Sarah says. She can't untie the knot. She can't come at it with any kind of blade.

"I figured," Rachel says. "But it's less noticeable now."

It's too dark for Sarah to tell but she angles her wrist anyway, staring at the shapes like they'll show her anything other than blood. She even sees it in her tea now, settling under the teabag. Rachel can't take that away.

"Did you make Beth a card?" Sarah asks.

There's a pile somewhere with Alison, covered in glitter. It's awful. Alison smiled anyway.

"I did," Rachel says.

"Me too." Sarah digs her nails into Rachel's skin but Rachel only leans into it. "Glued on a bunch of sequins, the big ones."

"Did you write anything?" Rachel asks.

She covered it in sequins, actually. It was heavy to lift. She thought at first the paper wouldn't hold it but the glue dried and it seemed strong enough to survive.

"I tried to apologize," she admits. She sounds tired all of a sudden and Rachel catches it.

"I did too," Rachel says softly. "I didn't even know her."

Sarah didn't either; she slept with her boyfriend and couldn't even look at her, and now she knows what her pulse feels like and it doesn't change a thing.

"She'll be back soon," Sarah says.

That'll have to change everything. It'll have to be different. They can't let it stay the same.

"Maybe she won't, maybe her parents will let her go home," Rachel says, looking hopeful enough for Sarah to want to hurt her. Her nails aren't sharp enough to do any damage but she pushes harder anyway.

"They won't."

"Sarah."

Rachel's looking at her with glassy eyes, too round to be her own. Sarah tries to find the sneer in them. Anything to tell her they're not doing this.

"It feels like the end of the world," she breathes out.

She lets go of Rachel's hand.

"Sarah…"

She's on her feet and Rachel's hand is still halfway across the picnic table, open with tiny crescents where Sarah's nails had been. No blood. Sarah wishes there was. _You made me a bracelet, I made you a scar._

"I'm going to bed," she says. "I don't even think about her."

There's nothing Rachel can do but watch her go, finally taking her hand off the table as Sarah lingers behind the screen door to watch Rachel's moonlit form waver in the shadows. It's a mirage. She fell asleep and dreamt it all up to fill some aching hole. She doesn't watch Rachel with her heart racing or startle when Rachel turns.

She goes to bed and thinks about no one.

There isn't even a dream to remember.

/

There's an accident at soccer, after breakfast when Sarah is tired and stretched out across the bleachers. All the girls are running and then all of them are still and Sarah realizes someone's on the ground.

"She just fell," Zohal says when Sarah propels herself onto the field.

Raya's curled up with a stick in the back of her knee, exhaling soft moans as everyone stares at the blood. The nurse is on the way, someone says. With a stretcher. They're going to the hospital– she doesn't need the hospital– she needs stitches– she needs to yank it out– she-

It's the moaning, it's the little sounds that bring Sarah to her knees. Raya only looks at her with wet eyes, face pressed against the grass and her dark braids falling all around her like water. She takes Sarah's hand when it extends. Sarah squeezes.

"You'll be all right, love," Sarah promises. "Just breathe through the pain."

The specialist sends the rest of the kids to run laps around the field and the nurse comes soon after, but for a moment it's just Sarah and Raya, solemnly maintaining eye contact, holding tight to each other's hand.

"She's a brave girl," the nurse says as they all help Raya onto the wheeled stretcher, Sarah finally letting go as they need to take her away.

"I should go with her," Sarah says to no one in particular.

She has nine kids with their eyes on her as they run and the specialist tells her this is where she's supposed to be. _She'll be fine, this is procedure_. It isn't even Sarah's first camper injury – she had a girl split her lip on a bunk bed last summer and that had twice as much tears as this, blood pooling on the cabin floor.

"We'll just keep running drills," the specialist says, as pale as Sarah feels. "Make sure there aren't any more sticks on the field."

The two of them take a moment to look out across the grass, pretending they'd be able to see any potential hazards against all this packed, dry mud. Sarah runs her hands through her hair. The specialist lifts his shoulders. Sarah heads back to the bleachers.

She wonders, lying back down, hands on the skin of her stomach where her shirt rides up, if anything about what Beth did was an accident. If there was something held too close to her wrists and that's what started it, and she was too numb to know what else to do but continue. It's ridiculous. Sarah drags her nails across her skin. She'd like to believe there wasn't a plan.

Alison didn't get a letter. (Paul didn't either, Sarah's learned, but she's not sure he would have.)

She wants to think Beth is the type of person to leave a note.

She wants to think Beth would at least explain why if she meant to do it; the alternative is that she didn't care enough to tell them, the people who love her, and Sarah doesn't want to know her like that.

She doesn't want to know her at all.

She had a choice, of course, to jump in the lake after her. But not really. Anyone who found her would have done the same. The director told S it was heroic and Sarah could only pretend not to hear the tone it put in her foster mother's voice. It was a reaction, and Sarah wishes, watching the sky, that it hadn't been her.

A bird cuts through the stretch of blue above her without a single flap of its wings and she wonders what it's like to coast like that, trusting that it won't be dropped. (She thinks of Rachel. That stupid bird that tumbled.)

She doesn't want to think about anything but she shuts her eyes and she sees the blood down Raya's leg, staining the grass underneath her. Then it's the stain in the sand. Then it's the god-awful bracelet, staining her wrist, this constant reminder that she can't ever leave it behind.

She scrubs her hands raw before lunch. The scabs come off her palm and fingers and the skin underneath is tender, pink and stinging when it touches the condensation on her water bottle.

Rachel doesn't look at her. Sarah's not sure last night happened at all.

"Is it finally better?" Madeleine asks, grabbing Sarah's fingers to look at the healed cuts. "Does it still hurt?"

Today's lunch is turkey or veggie burgers, plates heaped with sides of carrot sticks and sliced bell peppers. It's colorful, at least. Sarah's been trying to arrange her veggies in some kind of line around the burger to make it all a little easier to stomach.

"Barely feel it," she says, and Madeleine accepts it and sinks back into her seat across the table.

They haven't been there ten minutes when Raya comes limping in with a popsicle, red drips down the side of her hand. Madeleine hops up to go get her lunch for her and the rest of the girls start making a fuss, _sit by me, Raya, did you get any stitches_ as Raya continues to let the popsicle melt.

"Just some little strips of this tape stuff," Raya says, as Zohal helps her get her knee up over the bench. "And some gauze over that. It doesn't hurt too bad."

They're all glancing under the table, trying to see the gauze taped to her skin. Sarah catches her eye and Raya smiles, giving her a slight nod, before continuing to answer the questions everyone throws at her.

It's enough of a fuss for Rachel to look over, Sarah notes. Just a quick glance, taking it in, quickly busying herself with her carrot sticks.

Not a bloody word all morning after whatever that was last night. Sarah didn't really expect anything, figuring this is who Rachel's deciding to be in the daylight, but if she was so concerned with Sarah's sleep surely she'd at least check in at some point to see if last night was any better.

 _I didn't think about Beth_ , she wants to tell her.

But Rachel's talking to one of her girls now, bags under her eyes, and Sarah continues to press the sore skin of her palm into her water bottle to feel that sting. It's better than feeling nothing. It's better than feeling a weight in her arms long after she put it down.

"Are you ever gonna swim with us?" Quinn asks, sitting on the other side of Sarah away from the rest of the kids.

She's been reserved; Sarah keeps meaning to find a moment to ask why, but every time she thinks she's found one someone interrupts or Quinn disappears. It's been peaceful, at least, without Quinn's constant antagonizing. Sarah kind of hates it.

"Maybe on the last day," Sarah says. She bites into a carrot stick. "Or if it gets hot enough."

Quinn looks like she might roll her eyes but just lets it go, choosing instead to squish the bun of her burger into something disturbingly flat.

"I don't want to swim anymore either. I touched a weed with my foot yesterday," she says.

Sarah chuckles. "Sure it wasn't a fish? We pulled some pretty creepy ones out of the lake on Saturday."

It finally elicits a reaction from Quinn, who crinkles her nose and looks at Sarah with a disgust she'd missed.

"Why would you even tell me that?" she asks, horrified.

Sarah can't stop the laugh from bubbling out and it puts a smile on Madeleine's face as she returns with Raya's tray. _Nice to see you happy_ , her expression says. Sarah's fairly certain she's seen it on Mrs. S before.

"Well I mean, the boys don't seem to mind swimming with all the fish," Sarah says with a shrug, finishing her carrot stick. "But if it's too much for you…"

Quinn's lips pull into something close to a snarl before she just sighs. "Yeah, okay. I got it. But if Paul can swim then you can too."

Sarah grimaces. There isn't anything she can say to counter that and she fills her mouth with a slice of bell pepper to get out of replying. It isn't like she can tell Quinn she'd rather not have to remember the last time she was in the water, her arms around a girl who's now out with the "flu".

Quinn raises an eyebrow, smile tugging the corner of her mouth.

"Fine," Sarah bites out.

"Free swim this afternoon," Quinn says. "Hope your foot doesn't touch a fish."

Sarah begins to clear her burger bun of sesame seeds, brushing the loose ones onto her plate with the backs of her fingers. "Long as you know we're chatting during quiet hour."

Quinn seems to consider replying with something combative but settles on removing the sesame seeds from her flattened bun as well, eyes on Sarah's fingers, doing her best to do exactly the same.

/

The lake is cold; Sarah feels it before she's even in, a chill creeping off the surface and grabbing ankles that wait in the sand.

It's another hot day so it should be nice, some kind of refreshing, but staring out across the choppy greyish-blue all Sarah can think of is Beth. The almost-grave. How her hair looked falling down her pale skin and what the blood did to the water.

Of course the lake now is full of kids, screaming and laughing and trying to drown each other with smiles on their face, breaking the shimmer of the surface with their thrashes. Sarah tries to focus on their rainbow of colors against the water and their movements that so efficiently contrast the calmness of the lake that night before she broke it. Ankle deep, she stares at the glint of the sun. Lets the cold bite her. It's the least she can do.

(Part of her, secretly, expects Rachel to come over from where she's sitting off in the sand to stop her from continuing. _You don't have to do this to yourself_ , Rachel would say. Sarah would let her take her back. Rachel's not even looking at her.)

"Come _on_ ," Quinn says, standing up to her waist with a hot pink noodle, rolling her eyes like she expected this.

 _I'm tired_ , Sarah feels like saying. _I think I'm gonna sleep in the sand instead_.

She sees Tony digging a hole with two of his boys close enough to her stuff to seem reasonable and at the very least it would put another physical barrier between her and Paul, who's on a noodle raft with half a dozen kids out by the floating dock. She can't imagine he'd say anything to her at this point but it's also what he _should_ be doing, to not arouse suspicion, and she's so frustrated by the whole situation that she'd much rather sit it out. Dig holes with Tony and pretend it's not happening.

Quinn comes stomping back with a splash and grabs Sarah's arm, fingers wet and cold, pulling her out into the water. Sarah lets her. They're closer now, or something, after talking, Sarah using a few of her orientation training skills before just pulling out chocolate, and Sarah's supposed to be a role model.

"The bottom's squishy," she says. She'd forgotten. Last time she was in here she was wearing her boots.

Quinn pauses and glances down, her grip still fearfully tight on Sarah's forearm.

"Yeah, it gets sandy in a little bit," she says. "Then it's all weeds."

They're out deep enough for Sarah's ribs to be bitten by the sharp cold of the water, everything in her constricting as they move. Her usual method is to take a few steps and then wait a painfully long time, telling herself she's getting used to it, before plunging forward to wait again. She doesn't have a choice now. She didn't have a choice with Beth. (She can't even remember feeling it with Beth – not until later, when it was like she couldn't get warm.)

Quinn lets go of her noodle for a second to snag a second noodle, a blue one, for Sarah, passing it back before grabbing her own that was doing its best to float away.

"We make these into thrones at my pool at home, me and my neighbor," Quinn says. "She's fourteen."

Sarah smiles even though Quinn isn't looking at her. "Is she your friend?"

"Yeah," Quinn says, stopping as the water hits her shoulders. "I think so. I mean, she does my makeup and stuff and we talk about things. She has a boyfriend."

 _That's a little young_ , Sarah goes to say, but thinks of herself at fourteen and bites her tongue.

Quinn seems ready to drop it anyway, moving the noodle underneath her so she can sit on it. Sarah does the same. Quinn's staring off at where the rest of their group has come together, minus Raya, who's on shore with a book, pushing each other off an inner tube. Sarah hadn't even noticed; Quinn's expression hardens and it's clear she doesn't want to join them.

"You can swim with Paul, you know," Quinn says with a frown.

He isn't even in the water right now, he's stretched out on the floating dock with a lifeguard, but Sarah isn't going to point that out. "I'd rather swim with you," she says.

Quinn makes the same face she did when Sarah pulled her outside during quiet hour, making good on her threat to chat. _Nothing's up_ , Quinn had said, rolling her eyes. _I'm just sick of everyone here_.

"That's bull, but okay," Quinn replies.

The noodle has her floating a little higher in the water than Sarah, her shoulders visible over the surface, Sarah swallowed up to her neck. For a second she thinks of science class and buoyancy and decides she spends too much damn time with Cosima.

"You know," Sarah says, glancing over at Paul, "boys sometimes… They get it in their head that they deserve people because they want them. It's one of their many flaws."

Quinn's hair is struggling to stay wild despite the water pulling it down, curling out in a crown around her face that makes her look, in the sun, so much like a child. Sarah notices for the first time that she has faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, nearly the same color as her tan skin.

"Why?" Quinn says.

Sarah doesn't know if she's asking why they do that or why she's telling her. She can't answer the second.

"Well they just- I guess being male comes with a sense of entitlement. Deserving things," she says. Every time she bobs with the flow of the lake her chin dips underwater. It feels like the threat of drowning.

"Girls don't," Quinn says. She's frowning, and Sarah wonders if she should be saying this at all.

"No," she says. "Girls don't ever feel like they deserve things."

Quinn's silent after that, contemplative, the two of them bobbing in unison as the waves tug them outwards. They've somehow managed to drift away from nearly everyone else. Sarah doesn't mind it at all. She doesn't even fully mind the weeds that stroke her feet.

"Did Paul?" Quinn asks after a while.

Sarah had almost forgotten what she'd said, and it takes her a second. "Yeah," she answers.

Quinn looks at her for the first time like she understands her, eyes threaded gold in the sun. And then she plunges off her noodle and disappears underwater so quickly Sarah only really registers a splash and then an absence and she's alone until Quinn pops up, gasping, a few feet away. She doesn't look back.

Sarah pulls a chunk of foam out of the end of her noodle and drops the unnatural blue into the water. She's the cause of everything toxic in this lake. Maybe she'll grow superpowers; become some sort of villain.

Later, as they're toweling off, Quinn tells her she looks a little sick. Everyone shifts away from her.

"Maybe it's the sunburn," Madeleine says, offers, and Sarah's cheeks are definitely hot and tight.

"I'm growing gills," she jokes. They blink at her. "I'm fine, guys. Just not an aquatic creature. Maybe spent a little too long in the water."

It's enough for them to move a little closer, grabbing their stuff so they can head to the changing rooms. Everyone in the sand is packing up, towels wrapped around them, slowly moving towards the path. Sarah pretends she doesn't look for Rachel and it almost doesn't sting when she catches Rachel turning away.

Maybe they should have talked about Medusa last night. They could be pretending this is for a reason.

She almost wishes Quinn would see who she's looking at and make a rude comment so she could pretend she didn't agree, at the very least getting to enjoy hearing it said out loud. But Quinn's making an effort, she'd admitted earlier, to not being so awful, and Sarah wants to support that.

 _I don't want them all to hate me_ , Quinn had said.

But there'd been a sort of desperation to it as well, like she was also saying she doesn't know how not to, filling her mouth with chocolate before Sarah could ask anything else.

Sarah of all people should understand that self-induced isolation; turning to stone to stop them from seeing how much you want to connect, antagonizing in the hopes that they'll get that it's the only way you know how to reach out. It's like watching her childhood play out in front of her in a much nicer setting.

She decides to risk it and pulls Quinn into her side as they walk, regretting not hugging her earlier despite Quinn quite effectively freezing her out after that slight reveal.

Quinn crinkles her nose but accepts the arm around her.

"So I'd say we survived that experience," Sarah says, trying to ignore the coldness of Quinn's damp skin. "What do you think, better than the boys?"

Quinn glances up, having been watching her feet, and the blank expression disappears behind a smile. "Obviously. Paul like, wasn't even really in the water. We totally won that."

It's forced from the both of them and Sarah would still like to know more about why that is on Quinn's end. But it feels, for a moment, as they bump along together, like something they could almost believe. And Sarah decides to let that be enough.

/

Rachel sits between Sahar and Evie at dinner, the two girls equally interested in her newly acquired skill of bracelet making. They'd worn her down enough during quiet hour to agree to teach them, and then when that capsized to agree to make them each a bracelet with colors of their choosing.

"The nice bracelet," Evie had said, pointing at the complicated pattern Rachel has only half mastered without Madeleine's help.

Of course they'd want the harder one; double waves, Madeleine had called it, an almost floral design, a series of knots in a pattern Rachel continues to forget. It looks impossible. Of course they'd want to wear that on their skin.

So she's weaving in between bites of lasagna, Evie's stub of a bracelet taped to the sticky table. And the girls watch her from either side so attentively they barely eat at all.

(She's being awful, in secret, doing Evie's first. Evie certainly asked louder but Rachel mainly chose her as a practice run, not wanting to give the worst one to her favorite child. As long as she doesn't think about it she can tell herself it isn't terrible.)

"My sister can do those," Clementine says with her fork in the air, only now noticing the bracelet.

"Really," Rachel says. And then for her own amusement," What's her name?"

She waits to hear Apple or Cinnamon, disappointed by the "Penelope" that comes out.

"But we mostly call her Nelly," Clementine says. "Like the rapper."

Sahar finally tears her eyes away from the bracelet, fixing Clementine with an interested stare. "How old is she?"

A thread slips between Rachel's fingers and she bites back an expletive as the knot undoes itself.

"Fifteen. She's in the senior camp," Clementine says, fork coming dangerously close to Isabella C.'s face as she twirls it.

"That's where my brother is!" Julisa says from down the table, sitting close enough to Sarah's vicinity that Rachel can't look over, and instead busies herself with fixing the mistake she made with the bracelet.

Sarah's been watching her all day, outright staring at certain points; Rachel has done her best to keep her gaze elsewhere but it's proving to be harder than expected. (The Madeleine situation, for example. Every time the girl approaches Rachel just _knows_ Sarah's watching, stewing, possibly, and can't help the urge to look around. It's aggravating.)

Her thumb slips this time and she groans under her breath as the thread unravels to the last knot.

It's pain, she recognizes, that has her hands continuously letting go, strained from all the intricate knotting and braiding. To continue to do this at the rate she desires requires muscle she doesn't possess and yet she can't stop, needing to keep her hands busy to stop herself from reaching for… anything.

Hair. Hands.

She hates that she can still feel Sarah's grip from last night at the picnic table.

Persephone, she'd said. As if Rachel didn't understand what that meant. (She was always so angry at Demeter. Mothers don't get to keep their daughters – she should have known. She shouldn't have tried so hard to cage her.)

"So everyone has to go tonight," Sahar says while the other girls talk about siblings, handing it over as a question.

"It'll be fun," Rachel promises. Another knot slips out.

A ghost walk. She'd laughed at first, by herself at the staff meeting, knowing and still surprised that Sarah wouldn't show up. A long walk through the woods at sunset, breaking for trail mix and ghost stories. It's a good way to tire them out, at least.

It's a camp-wide event therefore stories have to be tame enough as to not traumatize the youngest campers, but Rachel still clocks the apprehension on Sahar's face. _But you can do anything, Sahar_ , she wants to say, thinking of watching her run or the way she shimmied to the top of a knotted rope on Saturday. Surely this shouldn't frighten her.

Sahar chews on her lip, something that would annoy Rachel if it was Evie. The action flutters something in Rachel's chest.

"You can walk with me, if you'd like," she offers casually, trying not to react to the gratitude that blooms on Sahar's face.

"Okay," she says.

Rachel smiles in spite of herself. "And you know, I might need someone to hold my hand. In case it gets too scary."

Sahar smiles with her, too smart to fall for it but also happy to play along. She agrees and goes to start now, taking Rachel's hand in her small one, but lets go when Evie complains that she's preventing Rachel from working on her bracelet. She settles on holding onto the hem of Rachel's shirt instead and Rachel decides to leave the wonky bit on the bracelet as a punishment for Evie being such a nuisance.

The bracelet is almost complete by the end of dinner, but Rachel chooses to leave it in the cabin as they change into long pants and apply bug spray for the ghost walk. Her hands will be occupied tonight and she'd rather make Evie wait another day than reward her for her pestering.

Still, Evie ties her hair back with disappointment as Rachel tells her to empty-handed. Rachel decides it doesn't bother her but it takes a minute for the decision to stick.

"You know my mom and me take walks after dinner in the park," Sahar says as the camp sets out into the forest, happily clutching Rachel's hand.

It's still light out, but as soon as they're in the trees the light becomes dimmer, scattered, and any face Rachel tries to pin down only swims into butchered shadows. Nose here, ear there. She does her best to focus on the bright shirt of the child in front of her instead.

"Is that so," she says.

Sahar hums in response. "I think you'd like her."

"Your mother?"

The group moves slowly, a pilgrimage through the trees towards some place they'll only know is the destination when everyone stops. The counselors were told to amp up their kids on the walk there but Rachel's happy to let her girls take their time, picking up sticks and pebbles and bumping into each other like contented cattle. They'll be whining soon enough, she's sure. At least for now they're smiling.

Sahar nods and smiles as well, likely thinking about her mother.

"She's the nicest person in the whole world," she says. "She's from Iran. She came here all by herself because she wanted to live somewhere free."

"That's very brave of her," Rachel says, and looks again at the bright yellow shirt up ahead.

She can feel the warmth of Sahar's hand in her own, moving slightly with their slow pace, holding it like Rachel now imagines her to hold her mother's hand at the park. Briefly, staring straight ahead, she lets herself imagine she's walking with a daughter of her own; they aren't in the middle of about one hundred and fifty people, trekking through the forest at dusk. They're in a park somewhere, a ravine maybe, and the child at her side loves her. She blinks and lets it go.

"You came here from England, right?" Sahar asks.

Rachel steps over a small branch, realizing too late she should have kicked it out of the way so no child behind her trips on it. Oh well.

"That's correct," she says.

It's only boys behind her, Tony and Seth and Mark, Sarah up near the front with Cosima and Delphine and Paul likely somewhere close behind. She's not sure how she ended up surrounded by boys but appreciates that it keeps her away from any uncomfortable interactions with certain people she's avoiding. And there's the added bonus of being nowhere near Alison.

She'd much rather listen to duel noises from the rambunctious boys behind her and their incessant chatter than risk having to hear Alison's shrill tone. Especially after having to be the one tell her about Beth.

(She's furious with Sarah, in secret. Absolutely livid.)

(She isn't. She needs to be but she can't keep it in her and it's _eating_ at her.)

"Do you like it here?" Sahar asks as she hops over a muddy patch, pulling down on Rachel's arm for leverage.

It's all anyone ever seems to ask – when they hear her accent, when they figure out she's a transplant. It never ceases to annoy her but she finds herself wanting to give Sahar a positive answer, something that will make her feel good, because this is a country Sahar believes to be wonderful. Rachel can't taint it for her.

"It's my home," she says. "I wouldn't know how to live anywhere else."

She's not sure she could even take this body back to England, after everything it's seen. The second she stepped foot on English soil she'd likely begin to rot for trying to go back to a place that doesn't know her.

Sahar accepts it with a smile and they continue on in a comfortable silence, stopping once for Sahar to grab a stick and again when the group slows to a halt in front of them.

It's only a small clearing but everyone manages to fit, a few people sitting back in the trees and Rachel joining Sahar in the dirt, telling herself she doesn't look for Sarah as she glances around the circular swarm of faces. The director stands in the middle, smiling. Alison sits near his feet and Rachel accidentally catches her eye, expecting a scowl but receiving a blankness that haunts her.

There are a scattering of faces that can't pull it together tonight. Paul sits by Tony, bruise all but gone and lost in his own thoughts. Delphine has her head against Cosima's shoulder. Sarah-

Rachel doesn't look for Sarah.

She sees her chewing her lip anyway, knees up, so small she could pass for a camper. It's sickening.

"I don't like ghost stories," Sahar murmurs as the director starts his tale.

Rachel doesn't like trail mix, but the bags are being handed out anyway. She gives Sahar's hand a squeeze.

"None of it's real," she tells her. She finally looks away from Sarah. "Don't let it get to you."

/

Rachel's aware the counselors are having a campfire that night, once the kids are asleep. (Delphine invited her, even, catching her as the groups began to separate at the end of the walk, but the look on her face was too much for Rachel to even consider it.) It's something she can conjure up in her head: the image of them all laughing, cheeks flushed, tossing sticks into the fire without a single thought of consequence.

She thinks about it as she brushes her teeth, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. She doesn't – and then does – imagine Sarah sitting on a log, the wet rim of a bottle against her lips.

(The thing is, she had considered it. Delphine waited and Rachel truly gave it a minute of contemplation. But she knew Sarah would be there.)

(Or she knew Sarah wouldn't be, and that was her only reason for going.)

Her girls fall asleep quickly tonight – it's the exhaustion of walking and fright, pulling them swiftly into dreams. She leaves her door open so she can hear them breathing in their bunks. And then she's out of her own bed, feet in tennis shoes before she even has time to reflect on it.

It's cool outside, comfortable, crickets perforating the darkness as she crunches twigs underfoot. The picnic tables are empty tonight and she tries not to wonder about Sarah.

There's a body in her bed or there isn't; Rachel didn't hear snoring as she tried to settle herself in her own bed, but she knows Sarah's taken to just lying there in the dark, regretfully awake, very likely still dwelling on Beth. She can see it on Sarah's face every time she looks at her – the guilt and the ghost, and it's setting into her in a way Rachel can't think about.

(The thing is Sarah's weak. She can't move forward and she's letting it turn to tar.)

The moon is a wedge of lemon above her, souring the clouds that try to smother it. She strains her neck staring up and then tries to make out any of the stars around it, having always wanted to be good at these things, knowing constellations and remembering their stories, recognizing only vague outlines that mean something to other people.

There's a dipper in a break between clouds. Or a belt. Or a crown. She stares too long and suffers for it, a sharp pain shooting down her neck and into her spine.

She moves on. The trees whisper.

Sarah's face was unchanging during the ghost stories, first chewing her lip and then skin around her fingernails, looking right through Rachel when she did happen to look over. It's awful. Her children shouldn't have to see her like this. One of them was hurt this morning and Rachel wouldn't be surprised if it was Sarah's fault.

Negligent. That's what it is. Sarah's being negligent, and Rachel was only going to the campfire to tell her so.

A branch whips back as Rachel tries to brush past it and she can instantly feel the sting across her bare thigh. Not enough to really bleed, but enough to require cleaning if she'd like to avoid infection.

(She thought having Sarah shower off that night would prevent this. She thought they could sit there and work through it and it wouldn't…)

(It devours, this sort of thing. It consumes.)

She can't even see the moon through the thick of trees. It's dark enough for her skin to look grey, everything blurring into shadow. She almost misses the form up ahead. But she didn't miss it last Thursday and she can't tonight. It's the same rock. It's the same curl of smoke.

"Is this some sick game of yours?" Sarah snaps, her disgust visible as Rachel moves closer.

"What?" Rachel asks.

She looks at the rock without meaning to, unable to tell if any blood remains. It's too cloudy a night. Sarah's perched on it anyway.

Ash flicks into the forest. Sarah shakes her head and inhales, cigarette to her pursed lips.

"You can't even look at me in the day," she says. "And then everyone's asleep and here you are, some sad puppy following me everywhere."

"I'm- not," Rachel manages to get out, but then Sarah's scowling and the anger curls tight and hot in Rachel's stomach.

"Just bloody pick one," Sarah says as she pushes off the rock.

A shadow stays in her place and Rachel still doesn't know if it's a stain.

"It's not my fault you need someone to look after you," Rachel says, stepping back as Sarah moves forward. It comes out cold and sharp and she lets slip a smile as it lands in flesh.

Sarah's hand blocks her neck this time as she brings the cigarette up, wrist curled in defense.

"So, that's what you think this is, then," Sarah mutters. Smoke clouds her words.

Rachel runs her fingers down the front of her silky shorts, light and grounding. "You're still stuck on this Beth thing, Sarah. It's concerning."

Sarah grows wild all at once, eyes round and mouth open and eyebrows up, her body suddenly taking up so much more space as she begins to laugh and then darken into something that has Rachel instinctively stepping back. She hits the tree behind her and lets it pin her into place. Sarah, again, steps forward.

"I'm sorry," Sarah punctures, hot as the end of her cigarette, " _what_?"

The words are suddenly acrid on Rachel's tongue as she folds them over and in the dark she can imagine Sarah isn't staring her down, isn't holding her to the bark with such malice it has her heart racing, like she didn't just rip whatever fragile thing had formed between them.

(A cobweb, she decides, as she moves her hand along the trunk and touches something disturbingly soft.)

"You need to move past it," she says, soft this time like whatever's on her fingertips.

It still seems to strike as a knife and Sarah jams a hand into her hair as she glances away, desperate, and angry, her body suddenly wooden.

"You have no idea," Sarah says. It sounds like she means to continue but nothing follows it.

They could both be trees themselves, standing so still like this in the darkness.

Rachel takes the moment to push off the bark, gently, and match Sarah for height. Somehow she still feels smaller. Somehow Sarah still doubles her in every way.

"She _lived_ , Sarah, don't you understand?" Rachel asks. She straightens so she's a little bit taller. "You found her in time and she's alive, and there's no point in you carrying around all this unnecessary- what is it, guilt? Responsibility? My god, even you're smart enough to-"

She supposes she should have seen the slap coming, but the sting of pain across her cheek has her back against the tree and Sarah, seething, lands a step in front of her, breath hot across her face.

"I can't believe you," Sarah spits, and the venom and the heat and Sarah so close to her has Rachel launching forward, needing to smother the words on her lips.

Sarah bites back. Rachel tastes blood and her own cigarettes, and she deepens the kiss into something more painful just for that. She doesn't feel Sarah's hand in her hair until it's yanking, and her own hand is marking skin through Sarah's shirt, and when they finally pull apart her lungs ache, desperate for air.

She tries to catch her breath to say something before Sarah does, taking in the caged animal shine to Sarah's eyes, but then Sarah lunges and Rachel's gasp is swallowed up between them as she finds herself pinned to the tree again.

Sarah's lips _hurt_ ; it's a soreness Rachel tries to consume, greedily accepting the thigh that presses up between her legs. She feels her own dampness through the thin material of her shorts and briefly wonders what Sarah makes of that before teeth give way to tongue and Rachel rolls her hips forward.

The desperation is mortifying – she has a chance to absorb it as Sarah's mouth moves down her neck, hot and wet, and the dark of the forest stares at Rachel like an unblinking mirror.

Then her breath hitches and her eyes snap shut, fingers pushing aside fabric, the sound of her torrential heart in her own ears drowning out any noises she might be making. Without Sarah's mouth on hers she feels naked. And then completely dismantled, and it's over before she has time to think about it – just an ache where Sarah's hand had been and she doesn't want to admit Sarah's the one who leaves first.

But Rachel's the one left shivering in the heart of the woods.

And in the morning, Rachel finds her cigarettes wedged through the crack in her small window, crushed and hollow as she feels for the mark of teeth in her own skin. They edge every bruise; she allows herself three minutes in the mirror and then buries everything in makeup and denial.

/

Rachel spends the next week ignoring Sarah – except that Sarah somehow, suddenly, disappears, not even showing up for meals in the mess hall, and Rachel's ignoring looks quite a bit more like maintaining a sour expression while the world continues around her.

(Unreasonably, after Sarah left her that night, Rachel made the mistake of considering Paul. _Paul_. The other half to Beth, and Sarah-)

(At one point there was sympathy but Rachel walked back feeling grimy, an object covered in smeared fingerprints, something to have been consumed and conquered and spat out. Paul. She considered Paul. She considered the warning signs.)

Sarah inexplicably isn't even there during movie night, Rachel finding herself holding eye contact with an empty Alison for far longer than tolerable before she manages to shift herself into a corner.

Sarah misses the campfire. Sarah skips karaoke.

Rachel traps Delphine in a doorway on Tuesday with her knuckles white as she grips the doorframe until she realizes what she's doing, managing only wide eyes and half a raspy word before twisting out of the way and letting her pass. _Where is she hiding_ , she was going to ask. But that isn't the point of ignoring. And Delphine seemed resolute anyway.

Wednesday night she grows confident, sitting near Paul in the rec hall as he laughs and teases, and even though it's just for show there's a moment where Rachel understands it, briefly, why Sarah let him be the open flame to her powdery moth wings. He invites Rachel to the campfire that night. She doesn't say she'll consider it. She also doesn't say no.

It seems novel enough to warrant cataloguing, young adults mixing fire with alcohol and momentarily all caring about each other. The laughter. The ease. The absence of two notable people, and she doesn't think about either of them.

Paul brings her a drink that Cosima promptly intercepts, filling the space on the log beside her, joined by Delphine not long after and the two of them share with Rachel something spiced and heavy. None of them mention the absence or the faint marks along Rachel's neck; it's a balmy enough night to let everything fall away, a pleasant burn to the alcohol, Cosima warm at her side.

A long-haired girl from the senior camp gives out massages on a log near the fire. In the bushes, someone vomits. Rachel hardly notices as the mosquitoes come out and people return to their cabins and she herself ends up stumbling through the forest.

Her mouth tastes like cinnamon – she thinks of Hot Hearts, of Valentine's Day as a child and the treats her mother would send in her lunchbox. She stops to rest against a tree. A mosquito flits around her face and she only barely manages to swat it away, her hand slow and clumsy in the air.

The last time she felt like this she was alone, tucked into a corner at some work party of her father's, clutching her heels in one hand and trotting their sharp points across the marble tiles. New Year's, perhaps. Voices were counting down. (She vomited alone as well, she remembers. Her father was looking for her and she was reapplying her lipstick in a long stretch of mirrors.)

There weren't any mosquitoes then, she thinks, as she swats at another one near her ear. Nor was there the crunching sound that's only now become discernible.

She tilts her head and Sarah's teetering form comes into view, parting branches and cursing to herself, wrapped in some boy's jacket despite the heat. Rachel recognizes it as Tony's. Sarah spots her, and freezes.

Sober Rachel would likely turn sharp on her heel at this – it's a confrontation, and if Rachel knew how to move off the tree she'd be far into the forest by now. She moves her mouth slightly instead and wonders what the proper thing is to say. An apology? An accusation? If she'd let herself think about it before maybe she'd know how to feel now, staring at Sarah through five feet of forest like a rifle, bullets hot under her tongue.

Sarah inches closer and there's a bottle in her hand. Whiskey. Rachel can smell it.

As Sarah advances Rachel realizes they're near the lake, the sound of lapping water suddenly very clear and enough to let Rachel find her footing and meet Sarah halfway.

Rachel doesn't think before kissing her, hands in her hair and it tastes like smoke again – it takes Rachel a moment to realize it's her this time, it's the campfire clinging to her, and Sarah's mouth is sharp and hot with whiskey.

Sarah inhales as they break apart and then Rachel's shirt is coming off, the air soupy where Sarah's hands don't touch. They stumble back into a tree. Rachel feels her skin tear against the bark, but then Sarah's straddling her thigh and leaving new marks down her neck and Rachel can only focus on the ache building between her legs, and the wetness where Sarah moves against her, and her nails trying to bury themselves in Sarah's back.

She grasps Sarah by the jaw and jerks her face upwards, needing Sarah's mouth on hers like there's a cyanide capsule to transfer, delighting in the moan that comes from it. The friction isn't enough. Sarah guides her hand and it's almost familiar, this desperation they keep passing back and forth. She wants to call her on it. She curls her fingers instead.

Sarah smothers the sound against Rachel's lips, biting when it becomes too much. Rachel's shivering again and she still aches and it doesn't take long for Sarah to notice.

Rachel has tears down her cheeks, after. During. Everything tastes like salt and cinnamon. She sees Sarah look away.

And then Rachel's struggling with the clasp of her bra, catching on the scratches down her back, and Sarah's arms are around her and she's doing it up for her and whispering something against Rachel's shoulder. The glint of the whiskey bottle in the dirt is momentarily blinding. _I can't stand it. I can't stand it. We've both been so…_

"We're drunk," Rachel finally says. Her cheeks are still wet. It stops Sarah's whispers and Rachel realizes no, they aren't so much anymore. A chill runs down her spine.

Sarah pulls back and just holds her, looking her in the eye.

She has dirt smeared across her forehead. Rachel's chest hiccups with a stifled sob.

 _Don't let go_ , Rachel wants to say, but she wishes Sarah was hurting her, wishes there were claws, and that the desire to kiss her again wasn't independent from the alcohol. Sarah releases her anyway, as if startled into reality by the sound of Rachel's tiny sob.

A wave hits the nearby shore with a slap and Sarah stumbles backwards. She has a hand over her mouth. Tony's jacket is on the ground beside her.

The friendship bracelet around her wrist is only barely visible in the dark but Rachel knows the bloodstains well, picturing them even though everything's a muted grey. Sarah mutters out an apology. Rachel wipes her cheeks and moments later she finds herself alone.

Again.

 _You stupid girl_ , she tells herself. Palm against her cheek. Tapping. _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

She wades into the lake waist-deep, and after chilling herself to the bone finally heads back to the cabin, washing Sarah off her in a scalding shower and tucking herself between the cool sheets. The few hours of sleep she gets are infected by dreams of a mouth in the forest, devouring.

In the morning, at breakfast, Beth is returned with bandaged wrists.


End file.
